Subreption
by MatthewPoncho
Summary: After the events of Mass Effect 1, Commander Shepard chooses to go undercover, leaving the relative safety of Alliance and Citadel space to explore the hostile Terminus systems for a yet-unknown Reaper threat. AU following ME1 events.
1. Chapter 1 - Omega

**In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time. They called it the greatest discovery in human history.**

 **The civilizations of the galaxy call it the Mass Effect.**

 **In 2183, a human Systems Alliance marine, Commander Shepard, uncovered a dark galactic secret: every spacefaring civilization is completely destroyed every 50,000 years, according to the designs of an ancient race of machines called Reapers. Shepard stopped the Reapers' vanguard, Sovereign, and his indoctrinated servants during the Battle of the Citadel.**

 **Weeks later, Shepard now hunts for clues that might signal the Reapers' return to the galaxy.**

* * *

Omega is the end. In every language, every meaning of the title, the asteroid-turned-space station was the end. The finale. The resting place. The last stop.

Commander Shepard saw the seven vorcha approaching, armed with what looked like scavenged weapons and armor due to the quality of their equipment. One of the spiked, pus rotten bipeds even had a flamethrower strapped to its back.

"You! Human carry bounty!" the leader, or maybe the only one capable of speaking intelligibly, announced to Shepard, pointing in accusation. The commander unholstered the heavy pistol at her side.

Vorcha are considered a blight by most of the galaxy. The bipedal vermin are not known for their intelligence, but are frequently exploited for their natural ability to adapt to nearly any environment, as slaves or indentured servants, working in conditions inhospitable to other species. They reproduce quickly, and were apparently nearly ubiquitous on Omega.

"My bounty isn't worth it, vorcha. Get lost" she said, making it clear she was armed. The six in front of her started to spread out to block her path, and the two approaching from behind weren't very quiet.

"Vorcha eat human! Take head to Gavorn for trinkets!"

"Tell Gavorn _this_ human is off limits." Shepard was positive this would end in conflict. She queued up an attack on her omni-tool, a wrist mounted portable computer and miniature fabricator, and waited for the two vorcha behind her to strike. Based on their proximity, Shepard guessed they carried melee instruments, or else didn't trust their weapons at range.

"Fool human!" their leader screamed. "We talk and vorcha sneak behind! Attack!"

The first attack came from behind, and Shepard dropped to her knees in time for the pipe-wielding vorcha to swing wide over her head. At the same time, she gave a silent command to the omni-tool, launching thousands of tiny silicate particles into the air, arcing in a blaze of orange white light. The attack hit the flamer and bloomed out over its body, covering the vorcha's flesh, and more importantly, the fuel tanks, with tiny, burning holes. Rivulets of blurry, oxygenating gas streamed out of the damage.

The flaming vorcha didn't seem to mind its skin melting, but as soon as it released the safety on the flamethrower, gas hit the ignition, back-drafted into the fuel tanks, and turned the creature into a pillar of fire.

The vorcha that came from behind overstepped the attack. Shepard grabbed its elbow with her free arm, fired a trio of bullets into the leading vorcha, then pivoted the off-balance attacker in her grip closer to her chest. A shotgun barked nearby, and her vorcha's chest exploded in a display of thick orange blood. She wheeled around and put down the shotgun toting vorcha with three easy shots to the head.

Two vorcha unloaded their sub-machine guns at Shepard, but their aim was sloppy. The SMGs looked to be manufactured for turian hands—more like talons—and the vorcha had trouble keeping the large weapons to grip. Their haphazard spray of bullets pelted the no-longer-living shield, and Shepard dropped each of them in turn, letting her armor's mass effect shields soak up anything not stopped by the vorcha in her grip.

The remaining three vorcha hesitated. One carried a pistol the size of the creature's head, and the other two were armed with makeshift spears.

Shepard didn't hesitate. She dropped her bullet-ridden vorcha, launched another incinerating attack at a spear-wielder to her left, fired another burst of shots into the skull of the pistol wielding vorcha in the center, and produced a combat knife from a plate in her armor's left thigh, ready to engage the last opponent in close quarters if it tried to charge.

The last vorcha ran away instead.

"My compliments to Gavorn!" Shepard called to the fleeing vorcha.

Shepard holstered her weapons and regarded the bodies lying at her feet. Some of the vorcha were still alive, wriggling in pain. They might regenerate. She debated whether to finish them off or just salvage whatever materials her omni-tool could carry and move on, when her radio clicked on.

"Nice work, skipper." Ashley's voice came in over the comms.

"Thanks for the backup, LT."

Ashley Williams, former gunnery chief, now staff lieutenant, decided to stay on the _Normandy_ for Shepard's next adventure. After a string of crap assignments and postings in the boonies of colonized space, Williams finally got an offer that she deserved.

She turned it down. She claimed to have been sidelined due to her family name, and promoted only because of Shepard's, but the Commander promoted her anyway, claiming to need a new staff lieutenant. Arcturus accepted, and now Ashley Williams was finally starting to come into her own, learning how to be more disciplined, less headstrong, and a better officer.

It would still be nice if she assisted with some vorcha, though.

"You looked like you could handle it, ma'am. I got eyes on a batarian whose got eyes on you. Ten o'clock." Shepard turned away from the dead or dying vorcha and saw the batarian, maybe twenty meters away, staring at the carnage she had just wrought. He was armed, with maybe a Vindicator-class assault rifle, not the cheap scavenged stuff the vorcha were toting. He had armor, too, and carried himself with a profession, casual ease that looked to Shepard like he was used to seeing this sort of thing.

Shepard bristled, expecting another fight.

"Impressive, human," the batarian said in their species' distinct, deep, two-tone basso. "But just because you can take care of yourself on Omega, doesn't mean you belong here." The batarian stepped forward, and Ashley appeared from an alleyway behind him, holding a shotgun to the batarian's back.

"I don't think so, four-eyes," the LT said, her shotgun's systems priming with an audible whine. The batarian sighed in response, more annoyed than surprised. "Drop the heat, then we can talk."

Shepard crossed her arms. "You should probably listen to the woman. She likes her guns and knows how to use them."

The batarian obliged, engaging the safety on the rifle, causing the weapon to compact into itself, folding into a more manageable size. He stuck it to a magnetic interface on his back, then held up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

"My name is Korragan," the batarian said, by way of explanation. After a pregnant moment of silence by which the two humans didn't respond, he said, "Aria's Korragan. You must be new here. She wants to talk." Shepard looked at Williams and nodded. The staff lieutenant put her shotgun away.

"Alright, Korragan. Take us to Aria."

* * *

Afterlife was exactly how Shepard imagined a nightclub on Omega would be. The music was loud, the dancers wore practically nothing, and the bars were rowdy. She could identify four drugs, illegal in Citadel space, being casually exchanged, and several others she couldn't identify. The center stage dominated the room, its platform built atop the circular bar at the center of the club, with lights that projected the stage dancer's shadows and forms to the open second level up above. The asari dancer currently on stage writhed to the music in a biotics-assisted display of captivating, floating flexibility.

Tactically, the place was a nightmare. It was crowded, yet open at the same time. Most of the cover came in the form of soft booths or unmovable tables. There was a flimsy, almost plastic feel to all the material, and Shepard didn't trust any of it to hold up in a firefight. The noise was distracting, and the smoke was thick. Shepard didn't like relying on targeting computers to get a clear bead, so if fighting broke out here, it would be chaos.

"Think this is a trap, skipper?" Ashley's voice didn't carry through her helmet, it was projected to Shepard's ears only. Still, she doubted Anto Korragan would be able to hear the two talking well enough over the club's anodic blasting music, anyway. Her tone matched Shepard's concern.

"Could be. Stay sharp." Shepard wordlessly started marking armed individuals on her heads-up display, and knew Ashley was seeing the relevant combat data update in real time on her end, too.

"Not a lot of humans," Ashley observed. Shepard nodded in silent agreement. Most of Aria's men, identifiable by their more militant posture and equipment, were turians or batarians. The only humans she could see in the room looked to be patrons in various states of relaxation or near-exhaustion.

"Up the stairs," Korragan gestured, after the three of them crossed the entirety of the first floor. Shepard nodded at the turian guarding the stairs, and after a moment of delayed realization, he stepped out of the way. Shepard gave him a look that she hoped communicated that she was prepared to defend herself, and walked up the stairs, Ashley following close behind.

Aria's private booth insulated most of the sound from the club below, featuring a transparent window with a view of the club, information terminals streaming silent data in the orange hue that seemed Omega's defacto color-scheme, and plush couches made of the asari equivalent to leather. The fact that Aria was an asari herself wasn't surprising at all.

"I don't know what combination of crazy or stupid you are, Shepard, but Omega is definitely somewhere you shouldn't be."

Aria stood facing the window, detecting Shepard's entrance by some silent means. Her voice was deep for an asari, characteristically a sign of matriarch age and status, but Aria looked to be in her maiden years. She was dressed in leathers and an open jacket that showed off her curves, but in typical asari biotic form and fashion, the tight dress appeared to be a soft-suit fitted with its own shield matrix and all the automated systems a hard suit of armor would.

Aria looked dangerous.

"Handled the vorcha welcoming party well enough."

"There's more than vorcha on this station, as I hope you're well aware of by now."

"So you know who I am," Shepard said, pacing around the room, taking in the décor. "You have me at a disadvantage."

"I'm Aria," Aria said immediately, "now we've met, and now you should get off my station before something explodes. You have a reputation, you know."

Shepard sensed Ashley tensing up behind her. So far, Aria hadn't really threatened her. Not in so many words, anyway. The situation was still salvageable, but Ashley might sense danger and decide to start killing. The two Alliance women had a different threshold for vocal context, especially where dangerous aliens were concerned.

"Williams," Shepard said out loud. "Go get a drink. I'll meet up with you in a minute." Ashley seemed to pick up on the subtext, nodded, and descended the stairs.

"Good," Aria said. "She was making my men nervous. I don't want to make a habit of killing Spectres, or their pets."

Shepard resisted responding to the insult, Aria was clearly in control of the situation. Shepard was at her mercy for the time being. She might as well try to draw some information out of the asari while playing mouse to her cat.

"So," she said, trying to figure out how to fit a demand into a compliment. "You seem to be well informed. Maybe if you can point me to someone, I'll be off your station a little sooner." Aria turned around, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

"They always come to Aria," she said, mostly to herself, Shepard thought. "Suit rats and pyjak sucking blood pack, doesn't matter. They all need something, and I always seem to have it." Aria slid down into the comfortable leather couch and gestured for Shepard to do the same. "So, who are you hunting, Spectre?"

Shepard joined Aria on the couch, trying to look comfortable but feeling anything but. Two batarians still stood in the door to the booth, expressions unreadable, but alert. And armed. Something told Shepard that Aria was probably the most dangerous person in the room, though, especially if she somehow had a small army of armed guards at her command, and in the middle of notorious pirate-territory, no less. Shepard stayed on her guard, choosing her words carefully.

"I'm looking for a bounty hunter, used to run with the Blue Suns. Zaeed Massani." Understanding and curiosity painted Aria's face in reaction. She pulled out a tiny metallic cylinder, drew it to her lips, inhaled, and exhaled some sort of blue vapor that danced in the air. It smelled like cinammon and blood.

"I know Massani," she said after a long delay. "Decent enough fellow. Gets the job done. Reputation for being the sole-survivor, though. Do you plan to kill him, or recruit him?" The question hung in the air for a brief moment as Commander Shepard tried to figure out how much information she could divulge while keeping Aria comfortable enough to give it out.

"Does it matter?" She finally said. Aria laughed.

"I guess not," Aria said, putting away the tiny inhaler device. "He hangs out at a human bar called Umbra a couple levels down. You'll fit right in."

"Good to know. This going to cost me anything?" Aria stood up and turned to face the window again.

"This one's on the house. Just don't make a habit of running to me for answers."

"Yeah, got it. Don't want you to earn a reputation for helping Spectres." Aria smiled.

Shepard stood up and turned to leave. "Oh, and Commander?" Aria asked without turning her attention away from the window. Shepard paused. "First rule on Omega. Don't. Fuck. With Aria."

"Easy to remember," Shepard responded, and left the booth.

* * *

"So that went well," Ashley said as the two made their way away from Afterlife.

"Better than expected. I didn't have to do some sort of side quest to get it, at least."

"And nothing exploded. Is this a new Commander Shepard I see?" Ashley said in a playful tone.

"There's still time for something to blow up, Ash, let's go meet our bounty hunter."

The Umbra rose to greet them after an hour of navigating Omega's labyrinthine superstructure. Like almost every other shop they had encountered, the bar looked run-down and constructed from salvaged or otherwise second-hand material, or else built over the previous tenant's work. Paint flecked off the walls in patterns interrupted by bullet holes every few meters. A sign that said "No Batarians" hung lazily, written in English. A spray painted response below it, written in Batari, spoke of humans' lack of sexual prowess in a single, unflattering symbol.

"Guess this is the place," Shepard said.

Ashley stepped through the den of haze and stale beer, quickly followed by the Commander. The place had a distinct human aged quality to it: old-earth nation flags hung on the walls shared with newspaper clippings (actual paper!) of historical events, and a single beat up Avenger assault rifle rested delicately on a shelf. The name plate next to the rifle read "JESSIE" in big, hand-carved scrawl.

The bar was not full but it held an intimate sort of raucous about it. Anyone not in a loud conversation was paying attention to the single vid-screen displayed above the bar, sporting its own steel mounts and a thick pane of protective glass.

"Aw come on!" a large man yelled, who Shepard pinned as Zaeed right away. He was the most well armed and armored of anyone in the room, his distinct shock of silver hair and one dead eye were easy to identify, and the man had splayed out at a table all to his own, a few empty beer bottles being his only close company. "The Dragons can't hope to get to the bowl playing like that. Bunch of rookies this season, eh, Mac?"

The bartender looked up at Zaeed and gave an affirming grunt. Ashley sat down at the bar in Zaeed's line of sight.

"Hey, sweet-cheeks, I'm watching that." Zaeed made a turning motion with the beer in his hand, leaning forward. Shepard sat down at his table, facing the mercenary's back.

"Zaeed Massani?" Shepard asked, producing her N7 Eagle pistol and deactivating the safeties.

Zaeed looked over his shoulder at Shepard. "Ah, shit." He fully turned around. "Mac. Better close up a little early."

Mac didn't seem to protest, but the rest of the patrons did. Zaeed stood up from the table, patting the shotgun magnetically attached to his hip.

"You dense sonsofbitches see that armor?" He asked, pointing to Shepard. "En bloody seven. Special goddamn forces. Get out of here before you choke on your own stupidity." Everyone seemed to get the picture, paid their tabs, and filed out of the bar. Zaeed shook his head at the procession of exiting humans. "Bloody ingrates," he growled.

"Nice to see you again, Zaeed," Shepard said.

"Yeah, well, I can't say the same." Zaeed sat back down and finished the beer he had been working on. "Figured you'd get killed in one of your crusades, sooner or later."

"Don't keep up with the news, do you?" Ashley asked from the bar. Zaeed cocked his head back.

"I get by, princess." Turning back to Shepard, he eyed the pistol. "So, I don't recall doing anything to piss off the Alliance. Not recently, anyway. Why's someone like you risking Omega to meet with little ol' Zaeed goddamn Massani?" Shepard set the pistol down on the table, but didn't disengage the safety.

"I'm a Spectre now, working on something in the Terminus systems. Something you might be able to help me out with." Zaeed seemed to relax a bit, apprehension dawning on his mismatched eyes.

"Merc business going tits-up, from what I hear. You Council types looking into that?"

"Something like that. I need an information network. Inside man. Figured you might know a way I can get Blue Suns on my side." Zaeed laughed. It was throaty, rasped, and filled the whole bar with noise.

"Hah! Spectre needs my help!" He turned his head back toward the bar. "You see why I have a drinking problem, Mac?" The bartender grunted again, but didn't turn away from his work. "Goddamn hero of the Citadel comes to _me_! You're gonna give this old shit an aneurysm from the stress, Shepard."

"So you _do_ keep up with the news?" pondered Ashley. Zaeed leaned forward, closer to Shepard.

"Yeah," he said, the stench of beer and tobacco greeted her senses. "And I know your girlfriend here has a six-figure bounty on her head."

The place grew quiet. Mac worked to clear the bar of empty glasses. Ashley slid the shotgun off her back. Shepard's hand didn't go to the pistol. Zaeed's hands stayed free of his own shotgun. Everyone stared at each other in anticipation. Zaeed was the first to break the silence.

"Fuck, Shepard," he said, leaning back. "I always knew you were trouble. Care for a drink? Mac's the best." Mac grunted. The tension evaporated in a second.

"Drinking on Omega seems to be a bad idea," she replied.

"Yeah, don't buy anything from a batarian while you're here. That's rule two of Omega, in case you're the type to make lists."

"Rule one being don't fuck with Aria?" she asked. Zaeed laughed.

"So you met the pirate queen?" Shepard nodded.

"And you're still alive. Good on you, Shepard." He clasped Shepard on a shoulder pad.

"Look, Zaeed, I'd love to catch up, but I'd rather get off Omega sooner rather than later. Blue Suns and Eclipse and Blood Pack. Merc bands consolidating power, teaming up, know anything about it?"

"Maybe," the old man said, looking thoughtful. "I still have a few contacts in the Suns but your little intel plan is gonna' be harder than it looks." Shepard crossed her arms and leaned back. Zaeed put up one gauntleted hand. "Not saying it's impossible. You seem to have made a career out of doing the impossible, anyway, so I'm not going to dissuade your shitcrazy ass."

"Okay," Shepard said, holstering her pistol. "What's it going to take, then? I need eyes on the inside, logistics, especially anything that points to alien ruins, or prothean relics, or what might be scaring a bunch of merc gangs into banding together. That sort of thing."

"Well," Zaeed scratched his chin in thought. "You _do_ have a bounty on your head. And I know where the Suns like to hang out when they aren't slave trading or running guns."

Ashley interjected with an incredulous look on her face. "Bait?"

* * *

"Freaking, bait?" Ashley repeated.

Shepard sighed, inspecting her equipment. "It's not my favorite plan, Ash, but we don't have much else to go on right now."

"But freaking bait? We don't have the rest of the squad to bail you out of this one if it goes fubar, Commander." She was right.

The ground team was down to just her and Ashley. After the attack on the Citadel, Garrus Vakarian had taken a job for the Hierarchy to do synthetics training, which the turian had said would please his father and hopefully earn him an audience willing to hear the Reaper story. Urdnot Wrex went back to Tuchanka to "solve the krogan problem." Tali'Zorah returned to the Migrant Fleet to complete her pilgrimage, and Liara T'Soni was back in asari space, hunting down clues in whatever academic circles she could get herself in. And Kaiden was...

"I know, Ash. I'll be fine."

"You two done gossipin', yet? I'm not getting any younger, here. Or prettier." The old mercenary packed a Scimitar shotgun on his hip, a Carnifex heavy pistol at his opposite side, and a Mantis sniper rifle to complete his load-out. Ashley ignored him.

"I don't trust this guy, either. What's he to you, anyway?"

"I met him on Elysium, during the Blitz." Shepard finished her own diagnostics, and switched to personal helmet-comms. "He's a mercenary, but not the type to screw us over. All the same, though, keep an eye on him. I can handle the Blue Suns." She wasn't sure she could, but Ashley would feel better trailing the bounty hunter over guarding a door.

"Aye aye, Commander," Ashley said through in-helmet only. "Stay safe."

The three broke off. Zaeed vanished beyond a plume of white vapor trailing out from one of the station's many temperature control ducts, his armor's stained yellow color-scheme matching Omega's mottled brown well enough to look like half decent camouflage. Ashley took off in the direction of the gambling house, Revelation, and Shepard knew she would double back to cover Zaeed's firing position. Shepard slowly stalked toward the gambling hall's front entrance.

"Comm check. Everyone five by five?"

"All clear," came the merc's gravely baritone.

"I read you, Commander," Ashley said.

Shepard sent a quick briefing to the _Normandy_ , updating her status. They were a long ways away from the docking bay the ship was parked at, but so far, Joker had only complained about boredom and the incessant batarian propaganda since they'd arrived on Omega. Shepard preferred a bored pilot to the alternative, and figured Joker could use a break from fighting Reapers.

 _So could I,_ she thought. The Battle of the Citadel seemed a distant event, even just a few weeks ago. She had barely recovered from a broken arm and fractured ribs after taking off in the _Normandy_ to hunt down geth, at the Council's behest, of course.

Instead following their orders to the T, though, she had picked up an alternate IFF, the identify friendly-foe device that broadcasts ship hailing frequencies and marks the ship's communication tags. They had also re-painted the _Normandy_ , much to Joker's chagrin, to look more like an independent vessel rather than an Alliance war ship. It wouldn't fool a well-informed or particularly perceptive enemy, but it in combination with the new IFF, they hadn't had any trouble in the radically independent Terminus systems so far. Aria had been the only person to see through their facade, but she seemed to be exception to the rule here in pirate territory.

Hunting geth required a few pit stops. The Alliance was out of intel and capable tools for hunting the illusive AI, which hid in bulk behind the Perseus Veil, which was itself surrounded by the Terminus systems. The Citadel Council seemed preoccupied with placating the masses instead of helping Shepard look for Reaper clues, giving her the assignment to occupy her long enough stay out of their politicking way. So it was off to the Terminus systems to hunt down rumors and gain new allies while Shepard's former ground team of alien misfits explored things on their end. Shepard was confident in her alliance-building skills, and now she would need that confidence walking into enemy territory as bait for one of the most powerful mercenary companies in the galaxy.

Rule three on Omega was going to be don't fuck with Commander Shepard.

Shepard adopted a steely persona afforded by thousands of hours of special forces training. Her shields indicated green, her N7 Valiant sniper rifle was freshly modified with new heat-sinks and lighter materials for close-combat engagements, and her pistol read cold on her hard-suit's HUD.

"Got you on visual, Shepard." Zaeed said as the gambling hall's electronic music and offensive neon lighting poured over Shepard's senses. "What's your twenty, princess?"

"Back alley," Ashley reported, "looks like some of the staff on a smoke break. Nothing to report so far."

"Roger," Shepard said, and approached the blue and white armored turian bouncer. The turian turned away from his datapad to regard Shepard's arsenal.

"I think you're in the wrong place, sister. Afterlife hires the dancers." The turian's grinding vocal resonance oozed with insult.

"Never was a very good dancer," Shepard said, shifting her weight into pose that could quickly overwhelm the turian if she had to. "Fighting a war for the Shadow Broker tends to confuse the muscle-memory." She saw that the turian recognized her stance, and he took a step back. "It also tends to fill the pockets with credits, so how about you let me spend some on the entertainment, here, Blue, or I could just beat you senseless and take my money elsewhere." The turian's mandibles pressed close to his hardened face in a wordless gesture of admission, and he nodded the Commander into the lobby.

"Damn, Shepard," Zaeed said over comms. "I bet you could argue those puffs at the Silver Coast into letting this old scab in."

"You should see how she deals with krogan warlords," Ashley said.

"Cut the chatter, you two. Zaeed, sight lines?"

"A'ight, Shepard. I have a clear vantage of the first floor, stick to the lobby or the quasar machines. Or the front of the bar. Got nothing on the back. On the second floor, all I got is the dance pad. Remember, if they take the bait, beat 'em like you said you'd do to that turian pissant at the door. We'll come rushing in like big goddamn heroes and figure out what Vido's up to. Got it?"

"Roger that, I'll try to be conspicuous."

"Commander," Ashley's voice came quiet over the private channel. "I got eyes on Massani's position. Second floor, opposite tower. Looks like a housing unit."

"Copy that, LT. Hold position, but keep an eye on the entrance for any trouble."

"Ten four."

Shepard spent some time losing money on quasar, buying drinks that looked alcoholic, and trying to identify any possible hostiles. The gambling hall was fairly open, with a lot of light and a decent amount of cover. If it came to a firefight, she was pretty confident she could engage anyone without civilian casualties. Or whatever qualified as civilian on Omega.

The security all wore the Blue Sun's trademark blue and white. They looked professional enough, turians, humans, and batarians all in attendance, guarding back rooms and covering the expansive areas with Mattocks or other military-grade rifles. They would be trouble, but they were no geth army or asari commando squad. Then again, Shepard didn't have a krogan on her side this time.

Ashley filled the comms with false reports, mostly about errata ranging from drugged up kids puking in the alley to workers taking out trash or beating people up. If Zaeed caught anything out of place with her story, he didn't indicate it.

"Shepard," came the old merc's voice, colored with concern. "I got six Suns coming in the front, armored and armed. Watch your six. Williams, you spot anything in the rear?'

The fact that Zaeed used Ashley's actual name instead of an insulting moniker was worrying in itself.

"Negative, all clear," Ashley's voice upped a few decibels from normal, and Shepard could read the heart-rate on her hard-suit jump ten BPM. Shepard looked around and spotted the Blue Sun squad coming through the door, talking to one of the hall's better dressed floor managers.

Shepard stood out of the chair she was sitting in, making her way toward the quasar banks where there was better cover.

"Zaeed, anything on the second floor?" She asked.

"Negative, all I see are drunk asari and one stupid volus with a chain—wait," Zaeed cut his speech off and the previous concern returned. "I think that's fuckin' Vido fuckin' Santiago. Sonofabitch never visits Omega. What the hell is he doing here?"

"I'm moving in," Ashley said in a tone Shepard knew she reserved for combat situations.

"Hold the fuckin' phone, sister, what the hell—?" Zaeed was cut off.

Shepard turned about, and now the squad of Blue Suns were moving toward her, purpose in their quick strides.

"Plans fubar," Shepard said. "I'm bugging." She started toward the fire exit in the back, knowing Zaeed's sniper position was either compromised by Ashley or he had started moving himself. She just needed to clear past the bar and it was a narrow hallway to the exit.

A door opened to the side of the hallway and a man fitting Vido Santiago's description stepped out, rifle in hand, grim determination on his face.

"Commander Shepard," he said in a low, careful timbre that might have fit a politician or a tech mogul better than a mercenary. "I hope you enjoyed your evening at the Revelation."

Shepard released her Valiant and started firing from the hip, shots smashing against Blue Suns' shields as she rolled over the gambling hall's expansive bar top.

"Massani! Williams! Report!"

No reply.

"Cheks, Rogers, Quellin!" The hall erupted into chaos. People shouted and screamed. Gunfire burst from every angle. Shepard's HUD was a blur of overlapping hostile indicators.

Shepard was trained for this, though. Her omni-tool lit up as she started executing a screed of long-accumulated programs. Light flashed out from her wrist, and she heard the tell-tale sign of rifles overheating in complaint, shields malfunctioning, and the Revelation's fire suppression systems activating. The room filled with wet, soapy foam, and Shepard used the temporary confusion to slide out from the far side of the bar.

She looked up to see the well-dressed floor manager staring down at her, eyes fixed in an expression of terror.

She brought her rifle's stock to bear on the man's soaked countenance, arcing up into his jaw and laying him flat on the ground.

Then the man exploded.

Shepard's shields _popped_. She smelled the all-too-familiar scent of ionizing gas that told her the suit's capacitors had overloaded. Blood trickled into her vision. The HUD was blank. Her omni-tool was silent.

Shit.

The bar was simply gone. She lied flat on the floor, pieces of stucco, concrete, and steel warped around her. Somewhere, through the piercing whine of white noise, she thought she heard a rifle barking in the distance.

Shit.

She fired at a blue blur in the smoke, and her target dropped in a haze of blood. Powerful hands grabbed her, wrestling the rifle away. She pulled out her sidearm, firing at the invisible enemy above and behind her. Brown ichor met her report, batarian blood splashing across her helmet. She kept firing, rewarded by the rifle landing in foam a meter away. She scrambled for it, only to have something heavy come smashing down on her neck.

Shit.

She was dazed, but not out. She kicked at her attacker, feeling armored joints buckle under her suit-assisted attack. She rolled to her back, slippery in the muck of foam and destruction. A turian met her gaze. Maybe it was the bouncer. She couldn't remember his face tattoos well enough to know. She fired anyway, pistol leaping in her grip. The turian's face shattered, crest turning into a fountain of dark blue. She rolled back to her side, trying to grab the Valiant, but it was gone. She produced her knife, ready to cut her way out if she had to. A shadow eclipsed her vision. She looked up into the barrel of her own rifle, wielded by a very pissed off looking Vido Santiago.

Shit.

Electricity arced through her body, and the lights went out.

* * *

 **Author's Note** :

So this should be pretty obviously AU, starting just after the events of ME1. I never liked how Bioware killed off Shepard, only to revive her almost exactly as she was before, but now in the hands of the obviously evil Cerberus. ME2 has great characters and a fun plot, though, so I wanted to take a crack at delving into the darker story of Terminus pirates, merc bands, bug-eyed collectors, and illusive men, without the contrivance of killing the main character for the sake of plot and/or gameplay reasons.

Also, screw thermal clips. They're stupid.

So, we'll see how Shepard fares if she had went to tackle the Reaper problem by going undercover in the Terminus systems. Hope you enjoy it.


	2. Chapter 2 - Sequestered

Elanas Haliat was having a very good day.

The manor was host to a sundry of busy decorators, cleaners, and independent catering services all working to deliver a wedding worthy of hosting Bekenstein's elite, and the criminal leaders that flocked to the planet's lax laws and luxurious parties. Bekenstein didn't quite offer what Illium had to the galaxy, but for humanity, it was a close second.

Haliat had been busy over the years, and this wedding was going to be her comeback. She'd have the likes of Jona Sederis eating out of her hand if she could pull this off.

She brought up the itinerary on her omni-tool. Breakfast was already checked off ( _ryokan_ style grilled mackerel, egg, sweetened tofu, and morning tea), only the best of what Bekenstein had to offer. Vido would confirm arrangements with the remaining caterers, then she had a meeting with decorators, florists, and a tailor.

Offenbach played gingerly throughout the estate while Elanas was with the cosmetics artist, who worked with a staggering amount of substances stored in a portable, iris-folding case. The categorization of all the various powders, dyes, creams, and lotions must require a VI to keep sorted, but the little Parisian woman currently holding up a liquid foundation to the light (it looked exactly like the previous one presented) appeared perceptive enough. The woman nodded her head and clicked her tongue at Elanas' reflection in the vanity mirror, seemingly satisfied with her victory over the foundation.

Elanas would normally be elated at putting on a face for the galaxy's most successful mercenaries. She'd done it before, albeit with less makeup and more military fatigues in the past. Her mind wasn't occupied by rouge and roses, at the moment, though. She couldn't help but smile at the next item on her list.

 **Cmdr. Shepard – confinement – 1 hour.**

"Ze lady is very pleased with with this, no?" the makeup artist said. Elanas smiled and nodded, letting the expert do her job.

After suppressing the need to exercise all the muscles in her face for what felt like forever, makeup was finally ticked off the itinerary. She called up her assistant, an old assassin named Butler that Elanas had nearly killed ten years ago. Now the man was _her_ butler, and the schadenfreude was elating every time she was reminded of the moment he begged for her mercy.

"Is the Commander ready for me, yet, Butler?" she asked.

"Aye," came the old merc's thick brogue. "Tha' she is ma'am. Way'd Vido and ye says to do her."

"Very good, Butler."

"I don't know why ye don' just off her. Seems right sensible."

"She's worth a lot more to me alive than dead, Butler. I recall making a similar decision with _you_ a while back."

"Aye, that is true, ma'am. We got everything set up on D level. Box four for ye'."

"Thank you, Butler. That will be all for now." With a swipe, Elanas ended the call. If she was going to meet _the_ Commander Shepard, she needed to look the part, and not dolled up in her frilly dress or makeup.

Elanas practically floated up the granite staircase to her room on the second floor of Vido's estate. By Bekenstein standards, it was a modest mansion, but Elanas had never experienced such wealth in her life growing up farming on Terra Nova, or even after she had taken to raiding in the Skyllian Verge.

Oh, she had dreamed of living in a place like this plenty of times. Castles with asari princes and the like (she didn't find out asari were an all-female race until she was fourteen, and it took a while to dash the dreams away). She had always thought she'd strike it rich with piracy, though; stealing a prototype ship of some sort, or ransoming some dignitary back to their people, but times change and she had to change with them. If that meant marrying into wealth rather than stealing it, then so be it. She had earned her prince, finally, through hard work and sweat and plenty of spilled blood, even if he wasn't asari.

She closed the door to her room and smiled at herself in the mirror.

She wriggled out of the practice dress, quickly removed the makeup, pulled her hair up into a ponytail, and found her old mercenary junk in a footlocker near the bed. The footlocker had a weathered beauty to it, like a piece of driftwood turned into sculpture. Dings, dents, and plenty of scorched paint told the story of a dozen close encounters, ships she had raided, and pirates she had bent or broken for her cause. She kept all her old raiding equipment as a reminder of where she had come from, and what she was willing to do for the admiration and respect of criminals. She ran a hand along its cracked surface, remembering all the success and admiration she had earned.

She also remembered all the contempt her name carried after the Blitz. _Her_ Blitz.

"The galaxy is far too civilized for the likes of us," she said to the soft-suit of armor as she donned it, piece by piece, the form giving gift to memory. The pieces still fit, and linking into the suit's power, they hardened and flexed with her body, offering a familiar reassurance of strength and protection. The torso plates still had flecks of mud and dust and scoring from a dozen different planets, dirt that no ship's decontamination process ever seemed to fully remove. The boots were heavy, but comfortable, worn in and built to last. "But so is the Commander. I think it's about time for some uncivilized work."

* * *

Commander Shepard had experienced pain many times before, and in many different ways. She had broken bones, before, torn ligaments, detached a retina, dislocated joints, suffered extreme burns, and had been poisoned in the line of duty. Sacrificing the body for the mission had been so common for her over the years that she hardly thought twice before throwing herself in the way of danger, and had taken equal parts admonishment and praise for that reckless behavior from her commanding officers. Anyone who lasted long enough as her CO, like Captain Anderson, quickly grew tired of trying to coach Shepard into being more careful. She got results, but Chakwas always had a playful quip when Shepard came back to the Normandy with a fresh set of injuries.

This pain didn't feel like anything she had ever experienced before.

Oscillating somewhere between lucid dreaming and black-out shock, Shepard felt waves of full body ache so intense she had trouble keeping track of time, her surroundings, or whether or not she was even alive until the next episode of pain confirmed it with every screaming nerve. She was having trouble just identifying the types of pain—her head felt immense pressure in one episode, then intense fever in the next—so intense and varied as it was.

When she was finally able to will herself to block it out as best she could, using the remnants of special forces training she could muster in that delirious state, it sent a wave of nausea through her body and she blacked out for the countless time.

Shepard rolled out of a forgotten dream to the smell of garlic and human excrement. She was in the fetal position, and her whole body ached. Her skin tingled with pain—like a burn—on every surface exposed to the air. She was wearing nothing but the mesh under-suit that hugged the skin beneath armor, but at least she wasn't naked. The floor beneath her was cold and stony. She had a fever; she was sweating and shivering, and her stomach threatened to dry heave at any moment.

She opened her eyes and immediately blinked them close. Stabbing white light sent another shudder of pain through her body. She decided to keep her eyes closed for now and assess the environment later. She tried to control her breathing, drawing from the thousands of hours of military training to block out the torment. After a while, she almost had control of her shaking body, and she dared open her eyes again, slowly this time.

The room was a rectangular block of artificially cut red stone. A single, bright fluorescent light shone bright from its fixture about three meters up. What looked to be the door of the room was nearly flush with the wall, only a slightly discolored frame and a centimeter gap giving away its presence.

She discovered the source of the awful smell was her. She must have lost control of her bowels at some point. The garlic scent, though, had no source.

She had only a vague sense of how much time had passed since being stunned on Omega. It could have been a few days or a whole week, but the terrible pain and high fever and odd dreams made it difficult to separate waking events. She continued assessing her injuries.

Her fingers were bloody and discolored, with some nails completely missing. Her jaw ached. Her eyes ached. Her lungs burned. Everything was fever and hurt. Complete pain in its purist form dominated every inch of nerve in her body, like neurons in the brain had all gotten crossed and were constantly being stimulated.

The door to her cell slid open with a low, grinding, tenor, drawing Shepard's attention and giving her something to concentrate on instead of the skull-splitting pain.

"My, my, Commander Shepard," a woman's rough timbre drifted into the room, interspersed with deliberate, heavy footsteps, "you are a magnificent specimen." Shepard struggled to roll and face the woman, to better defend herself if necessary, but her muscles betrayed her. She was able to turn her neck, but her limbs and torso were locked in near-convulsive response.

The woman circled around to give Shepard a view of her. Her appearance was vaguely familiar, like meeting someone from school years after graduating and being apart. She was a year or two Shepard's senior, dressed in an old soft-suit combat uniform. A few different mercenary colors were painted on the armor, but the white circled dot surrounded by blue was the only one Shepard recognized. Her dirty-blonde hair was pulled back, and Shepard smelled perfume the moment she had entered her view.

"All that power," the woman continued through a satisfied smile, "such an impressive form, brought to nothing. It's almost rapturous."

"Who are you?" Shepard tried to ask, but wasn't sure if her mouth was properly working. The woman must have guessed the question, at least partially, because her smile broadened and she straightened her back in pride.

"The one who made you famous, of course. All those years ago, on Elysium, when you stopped my Blitz."

Memory clawed at the back of Shepard's mind as the words were processed. She remembered being on shore leave on Elysium, after she had started the Alliance's special forces program. She remembered the sirens that called her to action, defending the spaceport, rallying civilians and militia to shut down the anti-aircraft guns that allowed the Alliance to send in ground teams. She remembered fighting a krogan battlemaster and earning the Star of Terra. She remembered the name Haliat.

The woman, Haliat, had a hand on her chin in an amused expression. "Remember now, Shepard?"

"So," Shepard said, straining to breathe between syllables, "you want revenge?" Haliat laughed.

"Revenge? Oh, yes, I do want revenge, but I'm not so petty as I am opportunistic. If this had been a year ago," Haliat opened her arms in a wide gesture, "I would have just put a bullet or ten in your head and called it a personal victory." She paced around the room, almost flaunting her control. Shepard could barely move her head, let alone defend herself. If Haliat wanted, she could kill her right now.

Shepard might have welcomed it.

"You're Commander Shepard, though," Haliat continued, "the first human Spectre. The hero of the Citadel. You stopped Saren. The face on every recruitment poster for Arcturus. You're a legend, now, if you weren't before, and legends have a _lot_ of enemies." Haliat finished, crossing her arms with the same amused expression.

"The bounty?" Shepard croaked out. Haliat cocked an eyebrow.

"Despite everything, you continue to impress. Most people in your position are driveling zombies by now. Or dead. Butler tried to convince me the dosage was too high and that it would kill you, but I'm glad he was wrong." Shepard had no memory of this Butler character, but tried to mentally file the information away while Haliat finished her speech. Shepard was having trouble staying conscious, let alone following context clues.

"Quite the specimen indeed." Haliat sighed and dropped her arms. "I'm not going to kill you," she admitted, "but I am going to make you miserable until I can auction you off. A satisfying conclusion to my ceremony. Saren was very good for business in the Terminus Systems. I'm going to collect, returned to my former status, and you will die a shattered symbol."

"You should have just killed me." Haliat laughed again. It was a mocking sound, like someone pretending to belong at an elite party. There was too much gruff in that laugh to belong to someone who spent their life playing caper to their desires. Haliat had lived a rough life, and now she wasn't. Now she was pretending.

 _Probably grew up on a farming colony somewhere in the Verge, close to the galaxy's danger. Not Eden Prime, it was too idyllic. She's somewhere fancy now, though._

Shepard tried to conjure the relevant memories. How was this woman connected to Vido Santiago? Ceremony? What was going on? The confusion and cloudy distance of her thoughts was infuriating. She was better than this. Better than this woman. She let herself get caught up in something she had no understanding of, and now she was probably going to die for that mistake.

 _I should have listened to the Council and hunted the Geth._

No. The Council had only begrudgingly given her SPECTRE status in the first place, when they had no better option. They gave her the task of hunting Geth to placate her, just like they made her a SPECTRE to placate Udina and the Alliance. They still didn't believe in the Reapers, and they weren't going to help her find them. Not directly, anyway. The Alliance was little better off, with their hands tied behind Council red tape and humanity-first political cabals. People were fleeing to the Terminus Systems in the wake of Sovereign's attack, unsatisfied with the Alliance and the Council's ability to defend them. Now, pirates were gaining legitimacy and growing stronger by the day.

Shepard went into the Terminus Systems to figure out what was going on, and see if the Reapers were setting up some sort of forward-operating theater. Now she was on her own.

"I know." Shepard said, taking a shot in the dark. "I know what's scaring your merc bands. I can help." It took a couple mental attempts at permuting the words to get them in the right order before she spoke them.

"You _think_ you know. You could help, but you're not cut out for the Terminus. The Collectors aren't the geth that attacked the Citadel. Your Alliance, and your Council, would deny they even exist. The Terminus helps itself." Now, Shepard was even more confused.

 _What the hell is a Collector?_

"What did you do to me?"

"My own special cocktail," Haliat admitted, proudly. "A blend of electric therapy and heavy metals. You'll feel worse before you get better, and these walls," she gestured to the stone around them, "are lined with all sorts of nasty stuff." Shepard looked toward the door.

"You should have just killed me." She repeated the line with more confidence this time, daring Haliat to leave an opening, make a mistake.

"I don't regret much in my life, Shepard, and I'm much more careful now than I was six years ago." Haliat took a step toward her. Shepard tried to raise her hands, mustering the best defensive position she could. "I suppose I should at least have my fun with you before I give you away, hmm?"

The pain was extraordinary. Haliat's booted kick came too fast to stop, and pain exploded across Shepard's chest, breath escaped her, and the familiar feeling of fleeting consciousness drowned her senses. She could vaguely hear Haliat say something else, then her face met the stone floor.

* * *

Shepard stared down the hulking form of the bloodied alien amid the smoke and ruins of what was left of Elysium's downtown capital, Illyria. The square was normally home to a grand fountain, that when functioning, cycled steaming water through cascading rivulets, forming clouds of vapor that turned white in Elysium's cold atmosphere. Now, the fountain stood ruined, centered in an open concrete clearing of broken shuttles, collapsed apartments, and derailed mag trains.

Shepard's pistol fired again and again into the krogan's chest, serving little better than pissing the creature off.

The krogan leveled a shotgun in Shepard's direction, and the first shot completely depleted her shields. Warning klaxons barked in her helmet. She stumbled back as her omni-tool automatically executed a predetermined countermeasure, and the shotgun's second blast just expelled smoke instead of shredding her to pieces. The krogan bellowed in frustration, charging at her.

Shepard produced her knife and rolled out of the way, slashing at the alien's legs while passing. Either krogan don't have Achilles tendons, or this one didn't care, because it hardly flinched as Shepard's attack swept by in an arc of orange blood. The krogan spun around, much nimbler than a creature of its size or bulk had any right to be, and started focusing a biotic attack in her direction.

Rifle fire echoed from behind the fountain, and Shepard spotted a turian head pop out of cover. Armor and blood exploded across the krogan's humped back, precipitating another furious growl. The gold and black plated krogan threw its biotic attack at the turian, warping energy twisting in the air around the pale target.

Shepard used the distraction to open fire again, but the heavy pistol just didn't have the appropriate stopping power. The krogan turned back to Shepard, leaning into her attacks, stomping its way across the pavement with glacial inevitability.

Shepard's pistol overheated as she backpedaled away from the krogan. She holstered the weapon and got ready to go into melee again, when the krogan _leaped_ toward her, clearing the distance between them in less than a second. Surprised, Shepard ducked and rolled, trying to draw her blade up into her enemy as he came down, but the krogan adapted to Shepard's dodge-and-roll tactics and swung the grip of the heavy shotgun down on her at the same time.

Shepard's right pauldron snapped and broke off, while the krogan turned and stood to face her again, Shepard's combat knife buried in the alien's chest.

The krogan panted in rapid succession, it's breath escaping in hot, vaporous clouds. It took a moment for Shepard to realize he was _laughing._

"Krogan ta loth bak'na'ra _human_ teech chopo." The translator picked up the krogan's guttural tongue and interpreted it on a few milliseconds' delay: "You fight like krogan. Your head will make a worthy trophy, human."

She squared her shoulders and spread her feet, getting ready for the krogan's next attack. Her opponent dug the knife out of his chest and threw it at the ground in front of her. Shepard didn't question the act, scooping the blade as quickly as the krogan started its next charge.

Instead of rolling this time, Shepard jumped toward the charging alien, planting her feet on his shoulders, and thrust the knife down into the krogan's neck. The krogan roared in pain and surprise, blood gushing everywhere, but it only bought Shepard a fraction of a second to carry her momentum behind the towering alien as the krogan swung wildly to grab her.

She jumped on his back before he could spin around again, repeatedly stabbing the krogan's neck over and over to the sound of the behemoth's fury. Chunks of orange and brown flesh came off with each attack, but the damned krogan just wouldn't die, flailing around, trying to buck her off his back.

The krogan finally found purchase, grabbing Shepard's knife-arm and squeezing with a biotic-fueled grip, breaking armor plates and crushing bone. Shepard let out her own pained scream, and tried to grab the alien's face-plate with her off-hand. The ceramic armor twisted and warped as she was thrown to the ground like a toy, her right arm hanging uselessly at her side.

The krogan took two steps forward and grabbed her by the chin, then immediately pinned her left arm to her chest with his other over-sized fist, lifting Shepard off the ground in an easy motion.

The krogan's face was a ruined mess. Chunks of flesh were gouged out of his neck, and his face armor was twisted up and around his jaw line, exposing a blood-soaked mouth. Hot breath and the smell of rot met Shepard's senses. She struggled beneath the krogan's grip, but even in armor, it was like a child opposing a power-lifter. She kicked and twisted to no avail.

"You're one ugly son of a bitch," she managed.

The krogan squeezed her helmet and the HUD gave a final warning as it clicked and died. The krogan laughed again.

"Tell me your name, human so I can honor your ancestors after you die." The krogan's mouth lolled open, tongue lapping up sticky blood all around his face as it waited for a response.

Shepard's suit was still functioning despite the broken HUD, and pumped her full of medi-gel. The krogan's constricting kill-move was slow: the alien waited for Shepard's name. It gave her time to find some function in her broken arm, and even though the pain was incredible, she finally found the spherical ball on her hip and activated the device.

"You talk too much," she said, and shoved the grenade into the krogan's mouth. The krogan reeled back, confused, but didn't release his grip on Shepard's head and torso.

The krogan's head vanished in a flash of blood and plating, throwing Shepard to her back, dazed, but not dead. Her shields had just finished recharging, only to fail completely under the grenade's impact. She sat up and took stock of her injuries.

Her right arm was broken, and the same shoulder had dislocated itself from the grenade's blast. Her face had some deep cuts, and she had twisted her ankle in the fall, but overall, the medi-gel was keeping her conscious.

She took a speculative look around and couldn't find any more enemies, so she popped her shoulder back into its socket, wiped the blood out of her face, and took a few moments to enjoy the sound of her own breathing.

After a while, she groaned and struggled back to her feet, limping toward the krogan. She collected her knife buried beneath pieces of wet alien. Half expecting the krogan to get back up and charge her again, she stumbled toward the creature's body to make sure it was dead.

"You killed it?" a weak voice asked from behind the fountain. Shepard looked down at the krogan pieces scattered about the square.

"Yeah, unless krogans can grow back heads," she said. The turian laughed. It was a grating, pained sound, interrupted by fits of coughing. Shepard made her way over to the fountain as quickly as her injured leg could move her, preparing a shot of medi-gel with her working arm.

"That's wasted on me," the turian said, shaking his head, as he came into view. He was covered in blue blood, resting his head against the fountain's crest. He had pale red tattoos on his face. Shepard didn't know what clan they represented. Her experience with turians had all been academic, in an Alliance classroom. They didn't bother with culture or religions in the military, but Shepard knew plenty of turian combat tactics.

It didn't seem appropriate to study a potential enemy so well, and have so little to offer this temporary ally.

"Nonsense," she said, gesturing to her broken, smoking armor. "I already got some." The turian chuckled again, coughing blood in fits. Shepard stabbed the manual medi-gel applicator into the turian's chest and squeezed the plunger.

"Humans," the turian said, his mandibles spread in an expression Shepard thought might be a smile. The turian drew a deep breath and exhaled. Then nothing.

Shepard didn't even know his name.

She grabbed the rifle at the turian's feet, debating whether to take it or let it rest with its owner. She didn't know anything about turian religions, or death ceremonies. He had probably saved her life with this rifle. She decided to honor his sacrifice by placing the rifle back in the turian's grip. If anyone came across the body, it would look like he had died with weapon in hand. A fitting end, Shepard hoped.

She started back in the direction of the space port. Her comms were fried and her omni-tool was destroyed, so she couldn't radio her mission success to the militia holding out underground. She'd have to make the hike back on foot.

After a while, the anesthetic of the medi-gel started to wear off. Her pace slowed, and she debated sitting down for a while to give her leg a rest.

"Human," came an alien voice that was starkly different from a turian's. Shepard turned and saw a batarian gripping a rifle, barrel aimed at Shepard's face, maybe twenty meters away. It was the dead _turian's_ rifle, with some of the blue blood still caked on the stock and grip.

Shepard sighed. "I'm not in the mood for this shit, batarian, go home. The pirates are dead or routed."

"I'm not a pirate," the batarian countered, "I just hate humans." The rifle started to whine as the safeties disengaged. Shepard's functioning hand moved to the pistol at her side, but she knew she would be too slow. She didn't have any shields, and the batarian was milliseconds from pulling the trigger.

Then his head exploded.

"And I fucking _hate_ batarians." A man clad in orange and white armor stepped out from behind a crashed shuttle car. He had short, sandy hair, a face that looked like it had been through a meat processor, and one dead eye.

"It's a little dangerous to be walking yourself home, missie," he said, still pointing his Avenger at the batarian's bleeding corpse.

"You offering to walk me home, grandpa?" Shepard asked, and grabbed the turian's rifle out of the dead alien's grip. The old man barked out laughter.

"Little girl's got bite. You sure you want to walk home with a stranger? I could be dangerous, you know." He turned to regard her.

"My last escort was a krogan. I think I'll be fine." The old man's good eye lit up, and he lowered the rifle.

"That was you? Bloody hell. Name's Massani, Zaeed Massani." Zaeed offered a hand, and Shepard awkwardly gripped it in her off hand.

"Shepard. Sorry, the other hand's, uh—"

"Krogan. Right."

The two started off toward the spaceport, Zaeed supporting Shepard as they walked the empty streets of Illyria.

"You're a little young to be special forces," Zaeed said, regarding her armor. Shepard detected a question in there, but she was too tired for a story.

"They sort of kicked me out by way of graduation," she explained.

"Huh," Zaeed said, looking thoughtful. "Reminds of a guy I knew, Stefan. French fellow. Or maybe he was French-Canadian, never got a chance to ask him." Zaeed took on a distant expression as the two walked the empty streets, sirens having died out long ago.

"Anyway, Stefan was really good with medicine, real natural this bloke, but his family couldn't afford to send him to medical school." Zaeed supported Shepard with one arm, pantomiming his story with the assault rifle in wide, flamboyant arcs. "He joins up with the Defense Force, private army type, for the subsidies, you know? This was back in fifty-four, maybe fifty-five. Gets shipped to Namibia for that nasty business down there. Way out of his league with the fighting, but the guy's a real savant with setting bones and the like. Found him sewing himself up on the battlefield, like he just didn't know that godamned bullets were flying at him. Like he was in a trance.

"I take out one of the turrets firing on our position and drop to cover next to this crazy kid, bleeding all over himself while he works the needle. I'm like, 'hey you dumb git, we're getting shot at!'"

"What did he say?"

"He just looks at me with this blank expression, and says, 'Already got shot,' just like that." Zaeed shook his head. " _Already got shot_ ," he repeated, "Like if you get shot once, that's it, you've taken your lick. Bloody hilarious that kid was. A genuine walking cracker."

"Was? What happened to him?"

"Goddamned batarians got him. Froze to death in a prison."

"I see."

The two grew quiet for a while, until the spaceport's towering honeycomb of platforms appeared from behind the city's skyline. Zaeed stopped his march.

"This is where the ride ends, kid," he said, letting go of Shepard's arm. Shepard nodded toward the faded emblem on Zaeed's armor.

"CASAI, huh?" she asked. Zaeed cocked his head, realization dawning in his mismatched eyes. He stood silent, clenching his teeth.

The two stood staring at each other for a long moment, Shepard's hand on her pistol, Zaeed's on the Avenger's grip. They were like that for a while.

The sound of a sonic boom broke the silence. Starships were entering the atmosphere. The Alliance had arrived.

"See you around, Zaeed," Shepard said, nodding.

"Bloody hope not." Zaeed turned around and started off away from the spaceport.

* * *

Shepard woke up with a new set of injuries to add to her list. The pain in her jaw, left cheek, and ribs was almost comforting. They were familiar pains. Pains from physical injuries. She could deal with that type of pain. It was the sickness, whatever Haliat and this Butler character had done to her, that was truly distracting. In some sort of twisted grace, the broken bones made it easier to compartmentalize the pain, like she had met her injury quota and her brain didn't have the capacity to keep it all sorted.

 _Lucky me_ , she thought.

She started scooting herself to the corner of the room, taking in her surroundings again with a relatively clearer head. It was the same place, with its stone walls, three-meter ceiling, and a door she couldn't bypass. Without an omni-tool, or some other point of weakness, she was trapped.

She would have to wait until someone came in to feed her, or give her water. Maybe she could overwhelm them, escape quickly enough to find her armor or a weapon, call her friends. Her stomach rumbled despite her nausea, her lips were cracked, her throat dry, but for hours, no one came to aid her.

She was on her own.

Her thoughts turned back to her failures. Stupid. She should have trusted Zaeed. She shouldn't have tried to comfort Williams. Ash was a soldier, she was going to follower her instincts without Shepard's direction, and Shepard had basically told her to get in the mercenary's way instead of helping her. Shepard thought she'd had been fine in the _Revelation_ alone, like she was invincible.

 _Already got shot._

She replayed the scenario in her head over and over. Vido and his goons coming into the gambling hall, her haphazard attempt at defending herself, the guy in the suit blowing himself up. If Zaeed had been covering the entrance with sniper fire, and Ashley had warned her about the additional Suns, they could have taken them out together. A well placed grenade in the close quarters, a few incinerating blasts, some overloaded shields and overheated weapons. They could have won, or at least fought their way out of trouble.

But they didn't. They lost. _She_ lost. She made a bad call and the first human SPECTRE, the woman who took down the Council's best agent, lost to a group of two-bit mercs. She should be ashamed.

"Fuck that," she said to no one, ignoring the pain in her jaw. "You're Commander Shepard. You killed a krogan with a combat knife and a hand-grenade. You stopped the geth on Eden Prime, discovered the Cipher to a dead race, talked to a fifty-thousand year old VI about the end of civilization, and canceled the goddamn apocalypse. Get your shit together, Shepard."

She pulled her knees under her, steadying her position, and used the corner she had backed into to push herself to her feet. Slowly, she tested her balance with a hand against the wall.

Pain and nausea greeted her again, but she stood. Barefooted and covered in her own bodily fluids, but standing nonetheless.

"Okay," she said, breathing shallow, trying to emphasize the lung that didn't feel like a rib was poking into it. "You got this, Shepard. What's your plan?" She looked up at the bright light dangling from ceiling. She couldn't see well past the light's fixture, but if she could get up there somehow, maybe there was a way to bypass the room. Wiring had to come in somehow, and the bright light was the only foreign object in the cell besides herself.

Plus, the damn thing was aggravating as hell, and she at least wanted to turn it off.

She turned to face the corner and placed her forearms flat against the walls at the corner's right angle, pressing into the stone to test her strength against her body weight.

"Gahhhhh!" Pain erupted like fire in her injured side. She drew quick, shallow breaths, grunting, trying to let the adrenal response work in her favor. She was exhausted, hadn't eaten or had a drink of water in who knows how long, and was afflicted with some sort of neurological pain torture, but it all just pissed her off even more. The adrenaline was working, and she tested her weight on one leg.

She didn't immediately fall over, but her kinesthesis was all wrong, like she was suddenly very, very heavy. She took it slow, closing her eyes, and replaying zero-gravity mnemonics she had been taught to fight disorientation in space. It took a long while, but eventually she was able to stop wobbling.

"Okay, now the big leap."

She growled like an animal to herself in preparation, pressing her arms against the wall as hard as she could manage with the pain in her ribs.

She jumped, throwing both her knees into the walls beneath her arm's grip. Her side exploded in pain again, the fire shooting through her chest and knocking the wind out of her.

But she didn't fall. She gripped the wall, suspended in the air, breathing as heavily as she dared, maybe a meter off the floor, legs locked in a mantis leap.

"Hah! You're a fucking monster!"

With renewed purpose, she began to slowly climb up the corner of the wall.

After what felt like hours, her head was almost flush with the ceiling. Her arms and legs felt like jello, but she kept pouring all her strength into keeping herself elevated. She craned her neck to inspect the ceiling.

It was flat, cut stone, just like the rest of the room. The light's housing was flush with the ceiling, demarcating about a meter square section of the ceiling to itself. If she could pry the housing off, she might be able to squeeze into whatever space it occupied. Or, she might be able to rip some wiring out, at the very least earning herself a crude rope weapon.

If she could get to the light.

She didn't have much time to prepare for the leap, though. Her muscles were failing, shaking against the pressure of holding up her own body weight. She took in a few more quick breaths, ignoring as best she could the pain in her side and everywhere else.

She tensed her leg muscles, and launched herself into the air, spinning to meet and grab the light fixture.

Her hands found purchase on the metallic housing, but her palms were wet with sweat and caked in blood and numb to feeling and racked with pain. She panicked, scrambling to grip the side of the light, but she fell to just fingertips in an instant.

A moment later, her fingertips lost grip, and she landed hard on the stone floor. She tried to cover the back of her head during the fall, but her jellied arms didn't move fast enough, and her neck snapped back with a _crack_ when she met the floor.

* * *

Shepard still felt herself falling when she woke up standing in a room almost identical to the one she had just been in, the vague sense of vertigo fading as a new reality took shape. She no longer felt the countless, full-body injuries inflicting her just moments ago. She was also cleaned up, still wearing the under-suit mesh, but detecting none of the blood and other stuff.

It was like a drug. She almost laughed out of pure joy, if it wasn't for the weirdness she sensed in her new surroundings.

In her head, Shepard knew this new environment wasn't a dream. It didn't feel like one, she was completely lucid, but the sense of wrongness crept up in the back of her mind, lurking somewhere behind a veil of realization.

It reminded her of the visions the prothean beacon had burned into her memory, and the subsequent Joinings with the asari, Liara and Shiala. This current place felt more interactive, though, and less like the emotional and chaotic memory dump of the Joining. A lucid dream she couldn't manipulate.

The walls were shifting in prismatic light. Images danced across the dark, flat surfaces, as if a broken holo-projector were displaying vids at double speed. She saw images of her N7 ceremony flickering and shifting in perspective on part of one wall. Her arm was still in a sling from the battle on Elysium when Anderson presented Star of Terra.

Another image showed her addressing the _Normandy_ after she'd gained SPECTRE status.

She also saw Sovereign, the massive squid-like starship taking off on Eden Prime. The image of the Reaper still crawled at her skin, like a primal fear.

 _These are memories._ My _memories._

"Cor-rect," a voice said, and Shepard whirled around to find the source.

She was staring back at herself.

Well, a replica. An identical twin. A mirror image. Shepard took a step back, confused.

The other Shepard opened her arms in a mechanical, placating gesture, shifting her head and flexing her facial muscles in an odd display of confusion.

"We are not showing to harm," the not-Shepard said in staccato. Shepard immediately knew what the speech pattern reminded her of.

"The Rachni queen?" she blurted.

"Yes," not-Shepard said eagerly, still screwing up her face and moving her arms about like a robot. "Its speaking is not singing. In this place. We are still unknowing to the colors of your musics. Many movements of face and mouth and tongue and body. A song of its own, but not a song we sing." It took a moment of pause for Shepard to parse the disjointed speech, but she thought she finally got it.

"You're trying to communicate, but still haven't learned how to talk," Shepard supplied. Not-Shepard nodded rapidly. "How are we here? What is this place?"

The not-Shepard looked around, waving a hand at the walls, saying, "This place is where it is. We are touching thoughts to the Shepard, like a mother to her young. We sing, to ease fear and pain, but the Shepard makes its walls in the mind to be deaf to songs." Shepard considered that for a moment, unsure if she was impressed or horrified at what she thought she understood.

"What do you mean, 'touched like a mother to young?' We're connected? You can... sing to me like you do with other Rachni?"

"We are thanking to the Shepard," not-Shepard said with a half bow. "We sing to make a touching sound, like the song of a mother, so we can aid it when it is needing. The Shepard is not listening, though, unless very much harmed."

"Like the dying asari you had to communicate through on Noveria?"

"Yes. The touching plays to thoughts and memories, but its song is strange. We cannot feel its colors, unless it is letting us."

"Huh." Shepard paused, letting the information soak in. The walls continued to dance with her memories on display, illuminating the room in a frantic bouquet of Shepard's life.

She had read up on Rachni after their encounter on Noveria, but Shepard had a few pressing concerns before she interrogated the queen on her strange abilities.

"How long do we have in this place? Does time move at the same pace on the... where I'm presumably knocked unconscious?"

The Rachni queen's response was always immediate: "We are not knowing of the places it sleeps. We are only knowing of the songs it lets us pluck from the mind."

"Okay, so you can only know what I know. Does it work both ways? Can I see your... songs?"

"We think singing to it our thoughts of us would be harming it. This one shares songs of all of us. All Rachni. If we are not singing the song of speaking. It cannot see the colors we play as well. One string is the same, when plucked, no matter where."

"Makes sense, I guess. Rachni are fundamentally different. It's not like learning a new language." Shepard sighed.

This was fascinating, and potentially very useful, but she didn't know how it might help her get out of this Haliat and Santiago situation. According to her research, Rachni had (or in this case, have) the ability to communicate across space, through some sort of biological version of quantum entanglement, and Shepard imagined that was what was happening now. Having a piece of her brain, or whatever was allowing her to hear the "song," entangled with the Rachni queen was unsettling, but if she could get a message out, it might just let her get in contact with her crew.

"Where are you now?" Shepard asked.

"We are in the place of soul-less, where it is saying for allies to study us in safety. We are keeping its promise."

"Can you get a message out to my crew, on the _Normandy_? Have you, sung to or touched another one of the people from Noveria?"

"We are not knowing where the _Normandy_ is. We are not knowing where the Shepard is. We only sing to the Shepard, it is the one we have promised. If it is harmed, we are trying to help."

"Yeah, thanks for taking away the pain, at least. I didn't realize how bad I was hurt until... well, now." Shepard thought of something else, an odd phrase she had never heard the Rachni utter before. "What is the place of soulless?"

"It hears the song in wrong notes. We are not singing speech proper. Not. Soul. Less. Soulless."

"Uh..."

"Soulless is a thing. Like it," the not-Shepard Rachni-queen pointed a hand at Shepard. "But not like it. Different song. Larger eyes, fingers numbering three, on each hand, enjoys singing own songs, many like it. The uplifters, who brought the war against Rachni." Shepard hesitated.

"Soulless... is a salarian?"

"Yes!" the Rachni said, almost jumping in agreement. "Soul. Soulless. We are not speaking the song to it, the chord is hollow, foreign, our song does not sound correct."

When Shepard agreed to let the Rachni queen free, she made it promise not to attack anyone again. When she reported it to the Council, they must have sent the salarian Special Tasks Group to track it down and study it. The Rachni queen wasn't likely on Surkesh, the salarian home world, but possibly in some sort of contained lab, or a cordoned off planet too inhospitable for anything other than a Rachni to survive comfortably. In any case, the STG might be able to help, if the queen can contact the people studying her.

"Can you sing to Soulless? Do you have a way to communicate with the salarians?"

"The Soulless one is listening with machines. It wants to hear our songs in its own, flat tongue. We will try to sing the Shepard's message to it, to help it, as it helped us."

"Good. I—thanks. I owe you a favor."

"We are want to help the Shepard. The machines it called Reapers are still threatening with their sour note. The Shepard is searching the Reapers in hidden, dark spaces. It will need help."

"Yeah, and the first step is getting out of this prison."

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry for the delay on this chapter. The holidays were crazy and my writing time has been limited.

Hopefully chapters will be quicker coming. I plan to go all the way into the events of ME3 (which will be very different from what happens in the game) and try to finish this series before Andromeda comes out. _CROSSES FINGERS_

Thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3 - Investigation

In an observatory orbiting Z'ha'dum-9, one of a few worlds cordoned in salarian space for research purposes, Mordin Solus sipped on Cantioc tea while reviewing his findings. The satellite network had a slight calibration error; its sporadic use over the years required thousands of tiny adjustments to meet the specific needs of whichever researchers were using it.

IO signal currently acceptable, could be better.

"Computer," Mordin said, "refresh harden cycle on liquid antenna loop, adjust z-axis receiver by point two-two-four relative to Y. Filter for ionosphere disruption." The computer beeped an acknowledgment.

Mordin noticed the slight discoloration in his tea. He frowned.

The door to the lab slid open, and a grey-skinned salarian wearing the Special Tasks Group uniform entered the small laboratory, his slim form reflecting warped images off the round, polished materials.

"Specialist Wiks. Sleep well?" Mordin didn't turn away from the data splayed across holo-monitors streaming in pictographic detail.

"Specialist Solus," the younger salarian said, "I should ask you the same, but I can guess the answer." Mordin sniffed.

"Sleeping well enough. Made breakthrough." Padok Wiks' eyes expanded, darting between Mordin and the data streaming across the landscape of holo-monitors.

"And you didn't wake me?" Mordin shrugged and set down his tea.

"Your input unnecessary at the time. Observe." Mordin waved his omni-tool at the screen, and the data transformed into colored waves, oscillating in concert, separated by Mordin's model of input. "Short-ranged, aural communication, combined with pheromone emitter in glandular region to elicit complex commands. Affects growth of neural receptors in underdeveloped pre-frontal region of larval offspring." The data shifted and expanded to reveal a three-dimensional cross-section of the Rachni worker brain, a series of nodules highlighted. The waves re-appeared next to the cross-section, and data spilled out, revealing the nature of the waves and their corresponding receptors.

"Separation lead to undeveloped epiphenomena in her young. Attunement allows us to supply basic communication."

Wiks crossed his arms. "This was already known. And practically accomplished by the dolts on Noveria. Proving it beyond the model gets us no closer to our goal." Mordin shook his head.

"Long range communication apparently based on quantum manipulation. Quantum pairs can't be observed, only manipulated by other quantum pair. Data only acts at two points." Mordin sniffed, adding: "Physics."

Wiks waved a hand and went to the refreshment cooler. "Yes, yes. Knowing what they say is not quite as useful as being able to change it, though." Mordin's eyes narrowed.

"Not useful to whom, I wonder? To us, or the Rachni?" Wiks didn't respond, and grabbed a can of something sugary. "The Dalatrass can demand all she wants. She cannot change physics. The Rachni cannot be controlled. They are not a weapon. They are a people."

"So you say," said Wiks, ignoring the insinuating remark about the Dalatrass. "I don't want to exterminate them. That would be unethical, of course. But they did nearly wipe out galactic civilization, and forced us to make a mistake with the krogan."

"Paid for their sins. Better to let them serve, than to make them servants, yes?" Mordin didn't clarify whether he was speaking about the Rachni or the krogan. Wiks made a dismissive sound and ambled to a communication terminal. He was going to read Mordin's report.

Mordin inhaled deeply. "How did the Rachni war start?" Mordin adopted a practiced, professorial tone.

Wiks shrugged and turned his attention back to Mordin. "Easy. We opened a relay, sent an exploratory vessel, the Rachni captured and reverse-engineered it, then attacked the galaxy at large."

"Ah," Mordin said with a slight smile, "but _why_ did the Rachni attack?"

Wiks slurped the sports drink, pausing to consider this question a bit longer than the last. "Unknown. All attempts to communicate with the Rachni failed."

"Precisely," Mordin said, raising a finger to the ceiling. "Extrapolate issue further. All large scale conflicts have several causes, depending on point of view of combatants. Turian unification war caused by cultural formality, split dependence, burgeoning population, separation from cultural center, lack of turian mercantile expertise—"

"Mercantilism?" Wiks interrupted. "As a factor in the Unification War?"

Mordin started pacing, one hand perched below his chin, the other supporting his elbow.

"Turian metabolism dependent on rare dextro-amino life-forms. Lack of food one of the common contributions to unrest. Trade allows access and exploitation of material sources across a network of partners. Eases burden during shortage, or creates surplus to ease concern for future. Also good way to make friends with those who are different. Thus, a factor in war."

"So," Wiks set down his canned drink and adopted a speculative expression, "the Rachni might be intelligent, but they're still just monsters. Monsters with big brains." Mordin clucked in disagreement.

"Monsters to _us_. The hierarchy were monsters to independent turian colonies during the war, systems just defending their way of life. All sides correct from their own vantage. All about perspective. Point of view. Historical debate on factors of war important for gathering data. Data allows us to change, not repeat mistakes. With Rachni war, missing critical data points."

Wiks nodded. "I think I get what you're saying, but this conflict has very little possibility of repeating itself. We don't open dormant Relays anymore. We learned our lesson. What can we possibly learn from talking to the Rachni about a conflict that will never feasibly happen again?"

Mordin turned his attention back to the holo-monitors. They represented the pinnacle of narrow-point spectroscopy, capable of counting the number of flies in a swarm, their maturity, and sex, based on the frequency of their wing flaps, all from an orbital distance and speed. If it was all attuned correctly, of course.

"Universe a very large place, specialist Wiks. Always room for more monsters. When we find them, we must take care not to become monsters ourselves."

There was an uncharacteristic silence between the two salarians, who would normally be sermonizing between periods of focused research. Wiks picked his drink back up, slurping noisily.

"Not enjoying your tea today, specialist Solus?" Wiks eyed Mordin's no-longer-steaming draught with curiosity.

"Distracted. Boiled too long. Growing tired of Cantioc anyway, might try Vilan next." Mordin sniffed.

"I concede," Wiks said, finally putting his loud beverage in a waste disposal bin. "If we can learn from the Rachni, it will be useful."

Mordin nodded, satisfied. Had to be. Only way to go forward.

"I'm curious, though," Wiks added, "what is she saying?" His large eyes reflected the images of data.

Wiks would figure it out eventually. He would figure out the Rachni queen transmitted a very specific message, a message intended for the salarians to unlock, a message that inexplicably resembled human-Alliance distress protocols.

Mordin already decoded the Rachni's message, of course, and re-encoded it with a parameter the STG wouldn't immediately decrypt, from a spoofed sender. He filed the original findings in a carefully written report, and found a way to communicate a different message to the queen, which she was now mimicking to his great pleasure.

He couldn't delete the data without Wiks, or someone more important, noticing, but he could delay them for a time. He would deal with that infraction eventually, and it wouldn't be the first time he skirted protocol.

"A song I taught her," Mordin answered with a smile. "Are you familiar with comic opera?"

* * *

Garrus Vakarian shivered in the decontamination chamber, familiarity and anxiety washing over him as the automated processes removed particulates from the air and surface of his hardsuit. He put away his visor, saving the calibration suite he'd been working on, and stepped on the ship.

A bright light greeted him through the opening door, revealing dark paneling, gray alloys, and the dim glow of orange holo-screens beyond.

The light reflected off pink skin, the domed shaped head of a human, whose wrinkles seemed more prominent, tighter, than Garrus remembered. The human's uniform, cuffed and creased, a dark shade of blue, and adorned with symbolic pins, was a familiar sight, but not one Garrus expected to see, much less greeting him with attention.

"Pressly?"

Pressly nodded. A solemn gesture of recognition, affirmation, and thanks. Garrus saw pain in the navigator's eyes.

"No sense sugarcoating it at this point. Better follow me."

The human turned and started down the hallway, and Garrus followed, through the neck of the ship and into the Combat Information Center.

The CIC was alive with activity. A forum gathered around the star map, jockeying marines, deckhands, and engineers in attendance, it looked like the whole crew had gathered. Dozens of arguments flew past Garrus' understanding, but most were focused on a brawl happening on the deck floor between Ashley Williams and an older looking male with silver hair, a scarred face, and dated heavy armor. The old human had one dead eye.

Pressly looked embarrassed. "He wanted to help," he said, pointing to the old man on the ground defending himself, "so I accepted, we need it, but the crew disagrees."

"The hell does that mean?" the old, silver-haired human said from his position on his back, in response to something Williams said before Garrus was paying attention. "If you hadn't been busy barking at me, we wouldn't be here, now would we, princess?" The older man was fending off Williams' attacks, and managed to clamp one of her wrists in a grip, but her free hand continued pounding toward his face.

"Stop calling me princess, you liar. The plan was FUBAR from the beginning, and you knew Vido would be rolling up with a whole crew!" Williams kept up the attack, landing a few glancing blows.

"If I knew Vido'd be there," the old man growled, "I'd have packed a thermo-nuclear explosive, not a couple of marine _pups_ who mistake trained mercenaries for red-shirts." He managed to get a knee beneath Williams, and pushed her clear off him, causing her to crash into a nearby marine.

The marine looked ready to take Williams' place in the fight.

"Enough!" Pressly shouted. "I am XO of this ship, and I will NOT have it devolve into chaos while the Commander is gone!" Garrus stepped between Williams and the man on the floor.

"Who's the skullface?" the older human asked breathlessly, sitting up and wiping red blood off his lower lip. Garrus cocked his head, mimicking the confusion, and looked for someone to explain.

Ashley sighed, shaking off the marine who held her. "Garrus Vakarian, meet Zaeed piece-of-shit Massani."

"Joker," Pressly said to the air, "Fill Garrus in."

Joker's voice, slightly modulated and full of sarcasm, piped up on the deck's loud speakers. "Shepard's been kidnapped. We hope. By a ruthless mercenary gang to be held for ransom. We hope. Hi, Garrus, how's your day been?"

"Nice to uh, see you too, Joker. Do we know if Shepard is even still alive?"

"Not exactly," Zaeed said, catching his breath. He stood up and leaned on the CIC's main center console. "Blue Suns are known to _apprehend_ high value targets and ransom them for money, though."

"Blue Suns. Tricky. And how do we know that?" Garrus asked.

Garrus heard plenty about the Blue Suns from his work at Citadel Security. They were one of the Terminus groups blacklisted from entering Citadel space, but he knew that they conducted business with politicians and merchants through back-channels that he was never "allowed" to investigate officially.

"Because I used to be one," Zaeed said with a grimace. "Plus, I know Vido. We go way back, and my gut says Shepard is still alive."

"Ah," Garrus said, still not clear about the whole situation.

"You're still on about this?" Williams asked, all rancor. "Your gut feeling got us into this mess." Garrus had only seen her this fired up after Virmire. She reminded him of a krogan in human skin.

"Arguing about who's at fault isn't going to bring her back," Garrus said. Zaeed leaned back, looking to Williams with content in his eyes.

"Finally, someone with a godamned head on their shoulders."

"Now, uh, Zaeed," Garrus said, taking a step toward the mercenary. "How long ago were you in the Blue Suns?" Zaeed narrowed his eyes and nodded.

"Long enough. We didn't part on the best of terms." The old mercenary stabbed a finger toward his scarred face. "I'm more than willing to tell you the whole story over drinks, turian, but we have more pressing things to discuss."

"Got it," Garrus said. He wanted to interrogate the old human, but he needed to press for more information. He mentally divided Ashley and Zaeed into witness categories, and was tempted to separate them for the sake of interview, but with Shepard missing, he didn't feel like he had the time.

"What makes you think Shepard's alive?"

"Like I said, gut feeling." Zaeed crossed his arms again, guarded. "I know what Vido Santiago's like, and he wouldn't let an opportunity like this slip through his fingers. Someone tipped him off about Shepard, and Vido's the type to kill two birds with one stone." Garrus wasn't sure if the idiom translated properly.

"Meaning?" Ashley asked before Garrus could form the words.

"Meaning if he's getting married and wants to throw a big godamned party, he's going to pay for the whole thing by selling Shepard's bounty, and he'll look like the biggest badass this side of the Verge." Zaeed waved a hand toward the console's galaxy map, and a list of planets appeared in the hologram. "Look, these are systems I know Vido has real estate. I've been keeping tabs on this asshole for a while. He moves a lot, never conducts business in person unless he has to, and never appears in public. He lets his officers take most of the credit."

"Pretty smart, for a criminal," Garrus supplied.

"Damn right. Only reason I haven't nuked his ass yet."

"You think his wedding is going to be public?" Pressly asked, joining the conversation.

"I know it," Zaeed said, smiling, "'cause I got an invitation."

"What? How? Why didn't you say this before?" Ashley asked.

"Because it's Aria T'Loak's invitation, and because she doesn't do weddings, she let me have it. For a favor. I knew you'd object, given the source." Zaeed's smug expression was readable even to Garrus.

Garrus knew Aria by reputation. She was one of the most investigated individuals in Council space, even though she lived and operated on the opposite side of the galaxy. She was one of the few people who had an open arrest warrant without having actually committed a documented crime in any jurisdiction that would make an arrest stick. That sort of thing was normally reserved for batarian slavers or krogan warlords. Aria was incredibly dangerous.

"You're willing to upset Aria just to get a shot at your old boss?" Garrus asked. Zaeed nodded. Garrus scratched his chin, contemplating, and said, "Okay, I'm in."

"What? You believe this guy?" Ashley turned her ire on Garrus.

"He's taking a risk, so yeah. As long as his vengeance doesn't get in the way of rescuing Shepard. I'm in." Zaeed looked victorious. Ashley sighed, defeated. "There's a catch, though, right?" Garrus looked to Zaeed.

"Yeah, of-bloody-course there's a catch. Invitation didn't come with the location, and I'm not owing Aria or the Shadow Broker any more favors. Vido's guards will shoot me on sight, so I obviously can't participate in the festivities. Princess here might also be hooked, on account of her smelling like Alliance from a football field away." Ashley bristled. "Plus, Aria doesn't hire humans. Which just leaves you, Two-Toes."

Garrus cocked his head. "You're kidding, right? The place is probably going to be packed with criminals, if what you said was true. I'm not exactly the undercover type. We go in expecting a fight, or not at all."

"And we don't even know where this is taking place," Ashley added.

"Bekenstein," Pressly announced, as if it were obvious. Everyone turned to the bald XO. "What?" he asked, facing a crowed of boggled expressions. "I'm a navigator for a reason. It's simple. Look." Attention shifted to the galaxy map.

"We eliminate these systems here. Too remote, they're obviously private residence or vacation spots. Terra Nova is in Alliance space, too public. These systems aren't comfortable for evening wear, so they're out." Pressly dismissed planet after planet on the hologram. "Which leaves Bekenstein. Also, I've been tracking personnel requisitions, shuttle departures from Earth and other Alliance systems, and everything points to Bekenstein. It's rich, it's comfortable, and it's got a white collar criminal reputation."

"Perfect," Zaeed said with a gleam in his eye. "I've seen plenty of examples of the next Elkoss knock-off from arms dealers in Bekenstein parties."

"Alright," said Garrus, rubbing his forehead, "We might know where it is, but that doesn't mean I can just walk in with your invitation, find Shepard, and shoot my way out."

"We can't?" Ashley asked. "Why not call the Alliance, get some boots on the ground and take this place out?"

"Announces we're coming," Garrus said, "which makes Shepard a liability. Better to just kill the commander and cash in on the bounty at that point."

"Unfortunate," Zaeed said, "but Two-toes is right. We're taking on the leader of the most well-armed mercenary band in the galaxy. He's got a few friends and more than a few employees. We gotta give you a moniker and a back-story. We accept as one of Aria's lieutenants and go in her stead, but it's gotta seem legit."

Garrus didn't want to admit it, but he found himself getting a little excited. He'd worked on similar plans back with C-Sec, and taking on a high ranking criminal again felt invigorating, but he was never the one under cover, it was always a partner going in who had better acting skills. His asari partner on the Citadel was three times the undercover officer he was, even if he was the better investigator. In the field, he worked best as a spotter, with a sniper rifle and several known exits once a plan went into action.

"Yeah, just one problem. I'm not the best at the undercover thing. I might know criminals, but acting like one is a completely different skill set."

"Maybe," Ashley said, looking thoughtful, "you don't have to act like a criminal. Hear me out on this. Every turian I've met acts like they have a stick up their ass, no offense." Garrus' mandibles pressed to frown. "Even the ones on Omega," Ashley continued, pacing in short steps around the CIC, "still had the turian military air about them. Guarded. Vigilant. That sort of thing. You guys don't have the greatest poker face, but you _all_ have the same poker face. We can use that."

"A vigilante," Zaeed said, hand on chin. "Yeah, I dig it. Omega's always got some do-gooder trying to change things. They never last long, though. What do we call you?"

"I got it!" Joker's voice boomed from all directions, and he adopted the tone of a serial holo-vid narrator: " _From the grunge-filled depths of Omega, comes Aria's vigilante sword, a knight in shining blue armor, but with a dark past. Expelled from the Hierarchy for cutting through red tape, he joined Aria's cabal of criminal exterminators. By day, he keeps the peace in a place where there is no peace. By night, he exacts justice with the business-end of his sniper rifle._

" _I present to you—_ drum roll please. Pressly?"

"Damnit, Joker!"

"Fine! No drum roll. _I_ _present to you, Archangel!_ "

The entire CIC looked at Garrus.

"What's an archangel?" He asked.

* * *

Garrus' shuttle complained as it dropped through Bekenstein's atmosphere, supports struggled to compensate for the temperature difference, heat blasted off the shields in tune with the element zero core balancing the shuttle's increasing weight during descent. The computer read green, however, and the shuttle's VI delivered its cargo of Garrus, Ashley, and Zaeed safely through the clouds.

Garrus tapped through calibration settings on his visor. Magnification maxed at 12x, urban suite. He kept biofeedback turned on, and played with biotic field detection thresholds. He felt anxious again.

In one talon, he was glad to be off Menae and hunting a dangerous criminal again, but in the other, the situation wasn't ideal. He never had his own command before, and he was going to be taking point on this mission. His experience with humans amounted to the occasional C-Sec recruit, traffic controllers and the like, and his brief stint on the _Normandy_. The hunt for Saren didn't give him a lot of time to bond with the human crew, outside of following Shepard's lead. Now, he would have to do his best with their plan and hope the rest came to him in the moment.

Ashley cycled her rifle's heat-release sequence, checking diagnostics, and repeating the actions over and over with practiced efficiency. The M-99 Saber _clicked_ and _whined_ , _clicked_ and _whined_. The rifle's audio cut through the engine noise with every repetition.

"We'll get her back, Ash," Garrus said, trying to sound confident.

"Don't worry about Shepard, Two-Toes," Zaeed said from the opposite bench. He chewed on an unlit cigar, half a grin peering from behind the brown cylinder of partially crushed plant and paper. "I don't know what sort of crazy soldier they like to cook up in the special forces program, but I know Shepard isn't without her tricks. You find your damsel, we'll make sure the job gets done." Zaeed motioned to himself and Ashley. The rifle continued to _click_ and _whine_.

The more Garrus understood of the old mercenary, the more troubling he felt. Bounty hunters, mercs for hire, and criminals in general typically don't survive to Zaeed's age. The scars on the human's face and hands told stories of what the man had seen, and all of them appeared to be painful experiences. Zaeed's bravado was more than an act. The man was dangerous, and Garrus knew, more than suspected, his involvement didn't hinge on rescuing the Commander.

"You seem sure of yourself," Garrus said. Zaeed shifted the cigar to the opposite corner of his grin.

"Damn right. Humans are the most dangerous sons of bitches in the galaxy, Garrus. You know why?"

Garrus took the bait. He needed to understand this man better to properly lead the operation. A mistake in the field could cost lives. Shepard would have found some common ground by now, and he needed that perspective to be effective. _Click_. _Whine_.

"We do anything to win," Zaeed pressed. "You turians can hold a good line. Meet force with overwhelming force, and all that. Humans? We sacrifice. We fight dirty. Sure, take Shanxi, have it, we'll be back to drop a hammer on your heads from orbit. We'll make that choice every time, and you'll make yours all the same."

"My father was involved in that conflict," Garrus said, "I never got the impression he thought the humans are more dangerous than, say, the krogan." _Click_. _Whine_. _Click_. _Whine_.

"I might be close to the same age as your old man, Two-Toes. Turians outgunned us, sure, but the fighting ended before we had to dig deep. Really had to fight to survive. Bioweapon ain't going to work on us, we've been through a bit of that ourselves." _Click_. _Whine_.

"Enlighten me, then, what was humanity preparing to do that would have guaranteed victory?" _Click_. _Whine_.

"I didn't wear the uniform," Zaeed nodded in Ashley's direction, "so I don't know what they were cooking up to take you out, but it wouldn't have been pretty. I've seen my people do some pretty horrible things to win a war. Who knows? Super carriers delivering fighters with faulty eezo cores that failed catastrophically as they crashed into your vaunted dreadnought lines, towed asteroids to bomb captured worlds, booby trapped satellites, that sort of thing. Hell, we probably considered destroying relays to trap your boys in isolated systems. The stories going around at the time were pretty wild." _Click_. _Whine_.

Garrus sat back, astonished. The old mercenary described many of the tactics the krogan employed in their rebellion. It took the krogan years to develop these strategies, though, first relying on their quick reproduction and nearly indestructible biology to win battles. Humanity would have came up with these things in weeks or months, instead, Garrus realized. After seeing the way Shepard led a team and fought on the field, Garrus knew Zaeed was probably right. Humanity might not have won a prolonged war against the turians, but taking Earth would have been a nightmare.

 _Click_. _Whine_. _Click_.

"We're getting close to the drop point," Ashley announced, stowing her rifle and shifting her weight.

Garrus noticed she was right, they were approaching the drop point located just outside Santiago's estate. Gray and orange rock and sparse foliage rushed to meet the shuttle in increasing detail on the monitor.

"Just remember the plan," Garrus said, "keep comms open, and don't do anything stupid." Zaeed winked at him with his good eye.

The shuttle touched down, the doors opened, and the two humans bounced out, separating immediately and disappearing in the rocky hills, leaving Garrus alone.

The turian sighed and the shuttle doors closed.

* * *

The five story structure stood atop a hill, framed by the distant capital city's skyline. Arches and spires and airships glittered in the background, suggesting the owner of this estate liked the solitude of the area but appreciated the vista and proximity to the trade center. Stringed music floated out of the house into the afternoon air.

The sight of human architecture always put Garrus on edge. He saw something alien in all the columns, the excessive windows, the square corners. Garrus figured he wasn't accustomed to the human design yet, and the other alien races were just familiar. Still, the structure in front of him felt disquieting. The great stone behemoth appeared simultaneously indefensible, practical, but artistic, the melding of which reminded him of volus constructs without the necessary accommodations for pressure. It was open, strong, but all too pretty. Odd.

Garrus willfully approached the human party against every protesting scale of his skin.

He talked to his headset, reporting the positions of a half-dozen guards wearing mass-effect generating soft-suits under their decorative attire, clear to a trained eye and Garrus' targeting visor. Two visible snipers posted on a balcony, and the building sported what looked to be some sort of mechanical security system on the roof. A body scanner, like one of the ones C-Sec used, went off with a soft hum and tagged him as he approached the grounds.

"Clade brother," came a dull announcement, breaking Garrus' concentration, the ditoned flanging of turian origin. A well-dressed turian with blue facial tattoos stepped into Garrus' view, his equipment and stature marking him as security, while his clan markings suggested a loose family resemblance. A distant cousin, maybe.

 _Spirits. Turians._ Garrus forgot about non-humans in the plan to pretend be somebody else.

"Ah, uh, thanks," Garrus mustered as he followed the other turian up to the door.

"You'll have to pardon the music, I think these tan skinned asari enjoy the skagwaul. The actual asari seem to love it anyway." Garrus noticed the guard was young, his facial tattoos still fresh, maybe not even a year dry, and not polished off like some of the turian criminals Garrus had brought in. His scales didn't show the signs of molting under the harsh Palaven radiation, they were clean and dimple-free. The guard was just a kid.

"Look, are you going to take my invitation or what?" Garrus stood his full height, back straight, maybe a few centimeters taller than the other turian, crest to crest, holding out his credentials.

The kid looked momentarily offended, passing a glance to the other guards, some of them eyeing the situation with peripheral attention. He looked back to Garrus' outstretched data pad, then to the M-3 Predator on his hip.

"You'll have to lose the sidearm," he said, the attempt at banter evaporated from his tone. He read the script on the pad. "Ark... _Archangel?_ "

"No."

The other guards' attention became much less peripheral. The kid took half a step back.

"Look, maybe you got the wrong idea, but—"

"I'm keeping my sidearm," Garrus said, trying to adopt the persona that Joker gave him. "I'll take this in and you're going to allow it, because my pistol isn't the most dangerous thing in that room, is it?" Garrus pointed one taloned finger over the kid's shoulder.

The youngster opened his mouth to object, when a blue hand touched his shoulder from behind.

"He's right. I am." The asari stood tall, nearly eye-level with Garrus. Her dress neither hid the curves of her body nor the suit of armor woven with it in typical asari taste. Garrus knew this woman.

"Dantius?" he blurted, almost dropping the façade. Nassana Dantius smiled like a predator.

"This one's talons aren't sharp enough to concern you," she purred to the guard. "Besides, we wouldn't want to upset Aria, now would we?"

Garrus snapped back to attention. This was a party of galactic criminals. He wasn't on the Citadel. He wasn't on the _Normandy_. He wasn't backed up by Shepard and her crew. His 'friends' were maybe within sight range, with rifles that would just annoy most of the guards before everyone got pegged.

He was alone.

The young turian finished scanning Garrus' data pad with dutiful efficiency, visibly shaken by the powerful asari breathing down his neck and an armed turian annoyed with the inconvenience. "You're clear, _Archangel_ ," he said, then added: "No funny business," to save face.

Garrus took his data pad and pushed past the guard, falling into step with Dantius up and into the house.

"See, Garrus?" William's voice came in small through his earpiece, "nothing to it."

"Good work, Archy," Zaeed said, "But try to lose Dantius, she's Eclipse, and bad news."

"Thought I recognized you," Garrus said, taking time to observe his surroundings and hoping Dantius didn't recognize _him._

The interior of the house bustled with movement, the targeting computer silhouetting Garrus' left eye frantically tried to ping the various wait staff, dancers, and conversation groups scattered about the large room. The hardwood and stone floors click-clacked beneath Garrus' armored feet, the polish reflecting the joyous movement in a nauseating display. Finery, artwork, and even paper books lined the expansive walls of the room, and the large patio overlooking the distant city, opened from the back of the room, inviting people to use the space to dance, while the stringed music heard earlier filled the air, played by a quartet of human musicians.

"And I guess you're Aria's new toy," Dantias said, striding into the room without so much as a hint of discomfort. "She finally throw Gavorn out an air-lock?" Garrus didn't know exactly how to respond, but once again took a cue from Joker's Archangel backstory.

"Aria doesn't throw away her toys without good reason," he said, trying to identify exits, or secret rooms, or the bar.

"I suppose. She does still keep Patriarch around. Maybe that's why she has Omega and I don't." Garrus bristled. She was _propositioning_ him, subtly. Understanding suddenly crystallized in Garrus' mind.

"I can't speak for Aria, you know that."

"But you can speak for yourself." Dantius turned Garrus around by the shoulder to force him to face her, hunger in her dark eyes.

The two stood, pausing for a beat, before Dantius continued: "Care to meet the hosts?" Garrus followed her gaze and spotted the man matching Vido's description, thirty meters away, talking to a krogan in red armor, with a human woman in a white dress hanging on his expensive looking jacket.

"I'd love to get acquainted, but maybe later." Garrus brushed the asari's hand off his shoulder.

"Very well, I'm told these ceremonies can be quite long. I'll be looking for you, _Archangel_." With that, she left to cross the room in Vido's direction.

Zaeed whistled in his ear. "Whew. Glad I didn't show up for this escapade myself."

"This is totally how I planned this rescue going. What's your twenty?"

"Maybe a klik out," Ashley reported, "try not to get into trouble."

"Aye," Zaeed said, "Shepard's probably underground, so keep an eye out, Archy. Follow security if you have to."

"In the meantime," Garrus said, "Try to find alternative access. This place is crawling with mercs. If a fight breaks out, I'd rather be in the hills."

Garrus decided that if rescuing Shepard required playing pirate politics, he'd need a drink. He identified the bar through the glass panes, standing on the edge of the patio, and started toward it.

A massive armored fist appeared in front of him, blocking his path. Garrus looked up into flitting, reptilian, yellow eyes.

"A message," the krogan said, hot breath and dental neglect burning Garrus' nostrils. Garrus cocked his head and moved to loosen his sidearm.

"Speak then, brute, or get out of my—" The fist turned into an accusatory stab at Garrus' chest.

"TO ARIA," the beast softly bellowed, cutting him off. "The Crush we called. Tell her to show or Omega will be no more."

The krogan turned, indifferently breaking off the conversation, and walked away.

"Sounds like Garm," Zaeed said. "Big bastard. Had a few tussles with him back in the day. Does he still will those obnoxious rods sticking out of his armor?"

"Yeah," Garrus confirmed with a deep breath.

"Heh. Hasn't learned his lesson, then. If you gotta fight him, try blowing those up first. The idiot thinks that carrying lithium bombs on his back is a good idea."

"I'll keep that in mind," Garrus said, "well that's Eclipse and Blood Pack, right? Wonder what Blue Suns have in store for me." He continued out onto the wide patio, into the dimming evening light, and over to the bar.

He shoved one the human's uncomfortable stools out of the way and examined the drink kiosk. A human wearing the black and white staff uniform polished glasses near an organized rack of ingredients. Garrus ordered a _Forward March_ while trying to come up with a plan.

Threatening Vido to give up Shepard looked like the obvious way to go. If Ashley or Zaeed could get within grenade range of the house, a few distracting explosions and one armored turian might be enough to separate Vido from his other guests. Most of the doors in the house appeared locked, the stairs were blocked off, and he counted no less than six patrols on the ground floor. If he waited until the party started dying down, he might be able to signal the fireworks and drag Vido into the washroom or a kitchen before anyone knew what was going on.

The dark blue beverage appeared in a turian glass, where the stem met the cup squared off to help prevent slipping through talons, with a tiny umbrella sticking out of it, which Garrus removed and stuck between his mouth and mandibles to play with, akin to Zaeed's cigar. Garrus looked up to thank the bartender when a blue and white dressed asari saddled up at the stool next to him.

 _Here we go_. Garrus took a deep breath.

"Garrus?"

"Liara?"

Liara T'soni blushed, leaning in close. "You should call me Night Sister. I'm trying not to attract attention." Garrus nodded, sympathetic.

"I'm Archangel. Joker's idea."

"I suppose we're here for the same reasons, then. How's the _Normandy_?" Garrus switched off his microphone for a moment.

"On edge. Joker's a lot more sarcastic than I remember. Williams broke down and cleaned her arsenal three or four times on the way here. They recruited a bounty hunter, Zaeed Massani. Pressly is saluting me. It's... Weird. How did you get here?"

"Used my mother's inheritance to get into some research circles, trying to dig up Prothean information, or Reaper information that no one thought important. Got black-listed, or something, I'm not really sure what, but I was getting barred from any academic event I tried to attend. I paid the Shadow Broker for some details, and—oh, I'm rambling."

Garrus tried to keep a straight face.

"Long story short," Liara let out a deep breath, "I found a message encrypted with ancient Asari cantos and followed the trail here."

"Yeah, same thing happened to me."

"You know the one hundred forty seven cantos of Ashiela Tzane?"

"What? No, I got an anonymous message written in a pre-unification dialect."

Liara blushed again and sat back, looking at Garrus' drink. "That any good?"

Garrus took a sip. It was actually pretty decent. He knew a few bars on the Citadel that could make a better _Forward March,_ but none of them from a human. He ordered Liara an Asari wine from the kiosk.

"Anyway," Garrus said after Liara's drink arrived and the bartender left to attend to someone else, "I'm glad you're here. I have a new appreciation for Terminus politics, and I don't think I can pull off a heist like this alone." Liara sipped on her wine, taking in the situation.

"You think she's here? Oh, wait," Liara paused for a moment, examining Garrus. "You're going to capture someone and make them talk."

"Yeah, Vido Santiago is our guy. He's the groom." Garrus pointed the man out, dancing with his new wife on the patio. The rest of the procession started gathering outside, to watch, or dance.

"I don't think we can grab him with a crowd like this," Liara said, noting the security, and the krogan. Garrus saw Liara didn't have any weapons.

"How's your barrier these days, Night Sister?" Liara smiled.

"Getting better. Just don't ask me to fight the krogan."

"I'll deal with Garm, you watch out for Nassana Dantius."

"Roger that, Archangel."

The two finished their drinks and stood away from the bar. Liara left a credit chit by way of a tip, which Garrus completely forgot about (humans and volus, the only two species who expected their service tipped, and it completely invalidated the concept of an "open" bar. It was never clear to Garrus which situations they expected the tip, either. _Spirits help me_ ). Garrus turned his mic back on.

"Status?"

"I got eyes on you, and your girlfriend, Archy," Zaeed's rough timbre came in clear through the radio. "And, I see the dance floor, and my boy Vido."

"I'm circling around back," Ashley said, "but they've got two additional snipers on the roof. Gonna take the long way around." Garrus winced. Four snipers, six guards on the ground floor, another four or five from out front, and who knows how many on a different floor. Liara's biotics and Garrus' Predator wouldn't do much against those odds, even with a distraction.

"Something's happening," Liara said, pointing to the crowd. The music stopped.

Vido stood on a platform, the wide vista of Milgrom's towering spires and arches in the background, announcing to the small crowd of elite criminals; humans, asari, a few turians, and some salarians in attendance. Garm stood like a statue near the platform, while Dantius positioned herself in the back of the crowd, arms crossed, looking over everyone's heads.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Vido started with authoritative grandeur. "Thank you for celebrating this joyous day with me, and my new wife, Elanas Haliat Santiago." Vido held a hand out to his bride and the crowd applauded in response.

Elanas Haliat. Why did that sound familiar?

"My first official gift to my new wife, is something very special. Honey, would you like to do the honors?" Elanas stepped on to the platform, and Vido stepped aside.

Garrus felt that nervous pit in his gizzard rising up again. He resisted the urge to check the calibration settings on his visor.

"Thank you, dear," Elanas said, then addressed the crowd: "This marriage is more than just the joining of two souls. It's an assurance that our way of life, our independence from the Council, and our path forward, will be one of progress. My husband's gift to me is my gift to you. You might remember our little mistake in 2176, which failed, and severely limited our access to batarian wealth."

Garrus didn't like the sound of this. "Zaeed, Ash, you found any alternate route?"

"Negative," Zaeed said.

"I have a garage in sight," Ashley said, "but no one's guarding it. I don't think it's what we want."

Elanas continued: "And yet, we came back stronger than ever."

"Recently, our connection to Council-funded ventures abruptly dried up with the death of Saren Arterius, forcing us to look within our own small networks for capital. We've had to become stronger still."

Some people in the crowd nodded in agreement.

"One person has been responsible for our set backs." Elanas paced back and forth on the small platform. "One person has been a thorn in the side of the Terminus worlds, and now, attached with over a million credit bounty, I give you that person." Elanus waved a hand behind her, and a massive holo-projector rose out of the rocky hill, blocking the view of the city beyond.

Shorter people in the crowd started shuffling around to get a better look.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Elanas said, activating something on her omni-tool, "I give you Commander Shepard."

The holo-projector lit up, revealing a live feed from inside some rocky cell. The Commander sat in a heap. Her hands caked in rust-colored dried blood. Her face bruised. Her breathing shallow. She lied there, rail-thin, and nearly motionless.

Liara gasped. An excited chatter took over the crowd. Garrus felt his anxiety turn to rage.

"To the highest bidder goes the spoils," Elanas said with a smile, "and the claim that they were the one to finally end the Alliance hero."

"This is a live feed?" a salarian in the crowd asked.

"Butler," Elanas said into her wrist, "wave to the camera, please."

A human wearing a lab coat stepped into frame, looking up at the camera. He waved. Shepard tried to move, but it looked like her injuries were too severe. Garrus tried to take in as many details as fast as he could. The walls in the projection appeared to be calcite, mixed with some heavy mineral he couldn't discern due to the lack of color, the lighting was bright from a single source, the human wore his facial hair thin with a mustache, but his boots—there was something off about his boots.

"What's going on?" Ashley called, "I see a box." Garrus stepped out of ear-shot from the crowd.

"It's Shepard," Garrus growled. "She's somewhere else, underground maybe. We're going, NOW! Zaeed, I need a distraction."

"Negative, Two-Toes, those snipers will take me out the second I open up. I need Princess to join the fun. Where's Vido slipped away to?" Garrus took a quick glance around, but couldn't spot Vido.

"Vido doesn't matter, we take Haliat instead."

"There's still this garage door," Ashley said, "I should go for it, come in from behind."

"Princess, you need to back me the hell up, no surprises."

"Spirits and skags, you two." Garrus didn't have time for arguments in the field. "LT, get up and here toss some grenades before our odds get even worse."

"Garrus," Ashley said, "this garage looks like it runs under the house. I might be able to get Shepard out of there if you two can draw attention up top."

 _Damnit_. They had a better chance against the guards together, all up top, but the garage might have a better way to steal away the objective.

"Fine! Try to be quick, and don't attract attention, because I don't think Zaeed and I will last long up here." Ashley responded with a double-click of her radio.

The bidding started.

"Three million!" someone called out. Garrus turned his attention back to the crowd, and saw Liara stepping forward, holding her hand up and bidding for Shepard's life.

 _Why didn't I think of that?_ If Liara could win the bid before anyone cracked their identities, then she might walk out of here with the Commander and they wouldn't have to light anything up.

"Hold for my signal, Zaeed." _Click click_.

Garrus couldn't get to Elanas Haliat without going through Garm first, and he found the big krogan yawning near the stage. Apparently the Blood Pack didn't have millions of credits lying around, or else krogan aren't entertained by an auction for a human's life. Garrus started in his direction, weaving through the distracted crowd.

"Five million," Dantius announced, a cool smile forming. Her eyes shifted to Garrus for a moment as he moved toward the krogan. Elanas Haliat's omni-tool lit up with each bid.

 _Come on, Liara, your mom had to be worth more than that._ Garrus winced at the cruel thought, but buying Shepard's freedom had to be the easiest victory they could hope for at this point.

"Six point five!" Liara called, but her voice shook. _Damn._

Garrus closed in on Garm, pushing through people too caught up in the bidding war to pay him much heed.

"Ten million credits," Dantius said.

The crowd gasped. Liara looked deflated. Garrus noticed Elanas hesitate, her omni-tool flashing orange for a brief moment.

"Sold," she said, seemingly surprised. "To Nassana Dantius for ten million credits. Congratulations, and delivery arrangements will be made, for whatever state you would like Shepard in."

"Ash, Joker," Garrus had an epiphany, "the Commander isn't on planet, she's on a ship." The boots. It was those boots.

Garm's massive fist closed around Garrus' arm. Pressure skyrocketed, his suit complained, hard plates splitting apart and beginning to crack.

"I don't think you are the Archangel," Garm said.

Garrus wheeled, loosing the Predator in his off hand and pressing the barrel into one of the shiny metallic cylinders on Garm's back.

"Right now, I think I am." He pulled the trigger.

* * *

 **Author's Note** :

Hey, look at that! I'm getting closer to meeting my own deadlines on this thing. Hopefully that means more story sooner.

If you're curious as to what the "save file" for ME1 is going into this story, check out my profile. I also have some overall goals for the story, if you're curious about what I've planned in very general terms.

More Shepard, and Garrus, and Mordin, and a bunch of others soon™! Promise!


	4. Chapter 4 - Boltzmann Constant

Jeff Moreau passed the time as he usually did during loiter-and-wait operations: considering the answer to life, the universe, and everything. That sort of thing. Not the number forty-two, though, that was mathematically proven to be unequivocally NOT the answer by the greatest minds of his age, despite the religious insistence otherwise. Joker decided he was agnostic about that part, even though the hitchhikers had a pretty elegant solution, all things considered.

Jeff's mind wandered as he programmed flight maneuvers into the autopilot computer, labeling them for mnemonic purposes. Ultraviolet-9, Bluestorm-2, Seagreen-5.

Life? What the hell was life all about? This combination of energy, of which the universe seemed hell-bent on churning out, made up of a cosmically coincidental interaction of acids that happened to eventually simulate logic, only to strive to survive in order to continue to simulate logic, only to evolve to the point where it understood its own logic system and came up with the same answers to its own questions—was meat. MEAT! Flabby, fat-fueled meat. Turians, asari, volus, humans, even the annoying hanar. They're all just meat, trying to convince themselves they aren't tasty to other types of meat.

The universe is a meat machine.

"Joker..."

This meat, this _stuff_ , the best it could come up with was Jeff? Really? Of all the progress in artificial intelligence, the most competent pilot in the Alliance was a piece of meat. He would probably go well with barbecue sauce and an aged whiskey. Maybe Jeff was a krogan delicacy. _Joker_ _à l'oignon._ He had over sixty clocks within sight range of the pilot seat, each counting time in various relativistic states, and that didn't even factor in the microprocessors and the nanoprocessors inside them. All this technology staring at him, and the best pilot in the galaxy was fueled by chemical reactions.

He was a machine made of meat, piloting a machine made _by_ meat.

" _Joker_..."

Maybe that's where the Reapers came from. Chance decided on silicon-based logic and now it destroyed the galaxy every 50,000 years. _Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh._ No wonder Sovereign was cocky, he was a machine-god getting tested by meat.

You know what? It wasn't fair. He knew his day was coming. Meat just wouldn't keep up. There was no denying it. He wasn't denying it, honestly. Jeff would never do that. Despite _not_ denying it, he felt betrayed by the machines, because he wanted to be special. Little creaky Jeff, all to himself in the cockpit, flying through the stars and being a cool guy with his SR-1 hat and witty banter. Change was always on the horizon, until it's staring you in the face, and the soul-crushing inevitability of automation was looking right back at Jeff in the form of an email, from a robot, that he was pretty sure wasn't just spamming him with links to naughty extranet sites.

"JOKER!"

"Damnit, Pressly, what?" Jeff snapped out of his existential revelry, turning to face the navigator a meter to his left. Pressly stood next to a blinking red light.

"Condenser is lagging on the aft LI heat sink, you need to shore it up."

 _I'll shore_ you _up._ Jeff obeyed, cringing at his own silent attempt at repertoire. Standard rotations were a bit out of whack, with the Commander gone, so Jeff volunteered to take on menial technician duty, like monitoring coolant levels, while they loitered in the Boltzmann system. He wasn't doing much piloting, anyways. He dialed the aft coolant pressure point two three one nine percent. The red light turned green.

"Thank you, Joker." Hooray, Joker! He made the red light turn green! _Goooood work!_

Pressly sighed. "What's bothering you, Flight Lieutenant Moreau?"

 _Flight Lieutenant Moreau_. Only his aunt and his flight officers called him that. Well, Pressly was technically his CO, but damn, the guy sounded genuine. Jeff glanced back at his personal comms, the worrying message still open.

 ** _I can help you, Jeff. Alliance R &D, cutting edge tech, balances load on forward batteries..._**

Jeff knew it was a robot because it used "balances load" and "forward batteries" in the same sentence without snickering. It had also been pestering him for days, breaking their comm encryption every time, making wild promises to cyberwarfare suites, engine efficiency during loiter zones, shoring up errant condenser malfunctions. It would turn all the red lights green, without Jeff lifting a weak, meat-made finger.

It also completely bypassed his VI-assisted spam blocker (don't ask why Jeff needed a VI for all his spam). It was an annoyingly _smart_ robot. He was starting to believe some of its wild claims.

"No worries," Jeff said, deleting the message and blocking the sender for the countless time. "You know, just an existential crisis, that's all."

"Joker, you have start taking things seriously if—"

"Look, man, I am serious. This is how I deal. Back off, _meat_."

Whoa. Meat? Really, Jeff, if you wanted to roast the guy, you could have come up with a better _skewer_ than that. Damn, that was actually one of his better ones.

 _ **The Normandy is perfect for this system, Jeff. If you delay, some other ship will get it, eventually. Can you afford to not be the best?**_

Was he going insane? Probably. If he was, though, how would he know? Do crazy people know they're crazy? Was the robot listening to the conversation? His thoughts? Maybe it was just really good at guessing. This was his reality now. Forever tortured by an email virus he probably picked up on Omega. Most people got to have fun before the pain and the itching and the topical creams were necessary.

Waiting sucked.

"Joker, I know you don't respect me like you do the Commander, I get that, but protocol isn't just a word in a book you can ignore."

"I'm not—look, I'm sorry, alright? I know you didn't choose the command life, it chose you, and all that. I can't just _sit_ and _wait_ and look at all the pretty ships going to and fro, wondering if my _Commander_ is on one of them. I mean, look at this." He brought up a live feed of the data they were gathering on the ship traffic in the Boltzmann system. "Business as usual, right? But Alliance data estimates eighty-three percent of human trafficking goes through this system. Eighty Three! Humans traffic more humans than batarian slavers, man, and it's happening right there!" Jeff pointed at the data-pins swarming around the various planets. "There's no way to know if Shepard is on one those ships right now, jumping through the Relay, and disappearing forever."

Pressly sat down in the co-pilot chair, eye-level with Jeff.

"Do you know why I didn't take the promotion to captain?"

Jeff sat still, letting the old guy talk. Pressly didn't deserve to be called names, the guy was doing his best. He was just meat, after all.

"I didn't take it," Pressly continued, "because I know my limits. I pushed myself just to get chief navigator. Memorized schema breakdowns of dozens of ship types, human and alien. Flew on most of those ships, some in simulations, a lot in actual _meat_ space."

Jeff eyed him. _You called him "meat," dummy. It was a joke._

"Anyway," Pressly said, backing away from the attempt at humor, "I guess I'm trying to say, know your limits. You're the best damn pilot I've ever seen. You out-maneuvered the geth. You aren't a machine, though. You gotta give yourself a break every now and then."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." He wasn't a machine, man, and he never could be. Meat, always and forever.

"Plus, I think Garrus has this. He shaped up Ashley and Zaeed pretty quickly back there. He'll find out where the Commander is and we'll swoop in like big damn heroes."

Pressly just complimented a turian. He meant it, too. Jeff really was going insane.

 _ **Let me prove it to you. Give my system a test.**_

Like hell. Test the machine that will eventually replace you, that sounds like a great idea.

Delete. Block. Repeat. Try that on, Sakurazaka.

* * *

The suit monitors on the bridge's dashboard beeped a familiar warning. How many times did Shepard lose shields, or get her stress levels into the red-line? How many times did her suit's medigel applicator trigger? A lot. Jeff lost count. It took a while to get used to it, just looking at your friends, your CO, in a deadly situation, but powerless to help them. Eden Prime was nerve wracking, but Therum was when Jeff almost lost it. Volcanoes and geth and krogan mercenaries, scary stuff. Shepard always came back, though, sweaty but stoic. Jeff was almost immune to the sound of the shore party getting into danger. Almost.

" _Shepard isn't on planet, she's in a ship!"_

 _Beep! Beep! Beep!_ went the monitors. The extranet probably thought he liked the noise enough to recommend ambulance sirens for vid searches. He subjected himself to it often enough, anyway.

Finding ships in space is easy. They practically glow like fireworks against the background of nearly zero Kelvin, but the real trick is figuring out which ship you're supposed to be looking for when there were dozens in the system, and half of them here wore non-standard IFF tags anyway. Pressly was actually some sort of genius at doing this, though, and spotted the cruiser-class vessel they were looking for in his well-annotated notes.

"You've got to be kidding!" The navigator jumped out of the co-pilot chair and rushed off to the CIC.

"What? It's this one? How do you know?"

"Because it's picking up shuttles from the estate, and, just look at the scans." Pressly practically sprinted down the corridor. "Garrus, we can't allow that ship to leave the system, I'm afraid evac isn't on the way."

Jeff looked at Pressly's notes on the _MSV Alabama_. He didn't see what the big deal was. Standard civilian Cruiser-class. Model on the pricey range, even for a starship. It looked like a pleasure cruiser for hosting wild parties and touring exotic systems. It had a big, flat, design, kind of like a squashed banana, just shy of a kilometer from stern to bow. She had a big eezo core and a light GARDIAN system and a big plated section in her cargo hold—

Ah, crap. It was a carrier.

The scans revealed a massive power output to the ship's hull, too, so it probably had something heavier than GARDIAN for defending itself, which made sense as a vessel in the Terminus systems. The _Normandy_ couldn't go toe-to-toe with it for any extended length of time. A pleasure cruiser would be a nice juicy target for pirates looking to capture wealthy individuals to ransom, the eezo core was a retirement package in itself. The cargo hold, though, was completely retrofitted, looking like it could hold a dozen or so fighter-class vessels. It was a baby carrier. Cute and terrifying. They could defend or conquer entire worlds with a ship like that, if other cruisers didn't get in the way.

Jeff flexed his fingers and started a countdown clock, then gently pushed the _Normandy_ toward Bekenstein. The _Alabama_ "drifted" in low orbit at a mere four kilometer per second velocity, made possible by lowering the ship's mass. Jeff did some quick mental calculus as he plunged toward the blue planet.

"Joker," Pressly's voice came over the intercom, "ease to attack position bravo at my coordinates, we don't have a lot of time if they try to bug out."

If the _Alabama_ wanted to bug out, it could escape with a second's notice. There would be NO time to disable it without making the attack first, but Pressly was setting up an intercept course; fine for pirate frigates up against Alliance patrol boats looking for a fight, but this cruiser could just bully its way past the _Normandy_ for an FTL vector and be at the Relay in seconds. Jeff looked back over the scans.

By lowering their mass so much, the _Alabama_ was effectively a floating paper plane. Kinetic shields relied on the energy generated by the drive core, so if it was splitting output between running the ship and lowering mass, the shields would fail quickly. The _Normandy_ could probably disable or destroy it with a couple shots from her forward battery, but if Shepard was on board, that option was off the table; they'd just as likely kill the Commander along with the ship.

Ships like the _Alabama_ couldn't rely on thermal radiation alone to get rid of all their heat, so they cooled off with a process of vaporizing liquid and then venting it out into space as a plasma. Killing the liquid coolant tanks on the ship wouldn't disable it, but there's no way it could attempt to rabbit into FTL without overloading the drive core.

The only problem with that strategy was that the tanks were closest to the underbelly of the _Alabama_ , the side currently facing the planet. Torpedoes could target those sections accurately, but any helmsman worth a damn would just focus barriers on that partition of the ship once they realized what was going on. A single torpedo volley _might_ disable the shield, but it wouldn't rupture the tanks.

He couldn't rely on these guys being idiots. He'd have to come up with something too crazy to be anticipated.

He could get fully under the _Alabama_ to target the tanks, and then angle a tungsten slug perfectly to not break the _Alabama_ 's spine and send the ship crashing into Bekenstein. Dropping into atmo was impossible with stealth systems engaged for exactly the same reasons the _Alabama_ couldn't maintain full barriers while at that altitude, so they had to come out of stealth, make the shot _in atmosphere,_ and get away before the _Alabama_ 's superior firepower destroyed the _Normandy_ , and do it all fast enough for the fighters to not pursue.

It would be a kilometers per second knife fight. Yeah, no problem.

"Limit coil detection to point three, threshold of sixty angstroms," Pressly commanded the deck technicians sprinkling into their stations from off-duty. "Adams, how long do we have on the IES?"

"Uh," Adams' voice came through on the deck. "Joker's doing something, what's this clock for, Jeff?"

"Everyone," Jeff announced, "strap in or get your mag-boots on, I'm going to cut non-essential systems in a few seconds."

"What?!" Pressly started back toward the cockpit.

The clock ticked. _Beep! Beep! Beep!_ went the suit monitors, the shore party still fighting.

If Jeff could cut the gravity and kinetic barriers at exactly the same moment as they dropped stealth, they could push the entirety of the _Normandy_ 's Tantalus drive into a variable mass sequence to prevent them from burning up while they made a supersonic pass. It would be just like an old-style jet fighter, but Jeff wasn't sure if the _Normandy_ could hold up to the intense atmospheric conditions. She wasn't the most aerodynamic ship; built for stealth in space, not flying faster than the speed of sound in atmosphere.

Only problem left to address was the angle of the cannon. The _Normandy_ was a starship, and in space, angling your attacks usually just meant altering the pitch or yaw of the vehicle. They didn't make mass-driver cannons big _and_ allow them to aim, they typically ran the length of the ship's spine to give the most punch. GARDIAN lasers couldn't punch through the hull and shields of the cruiser, they'd be scraping paint. Only a low-arc, mass driver round, from an upside-down _Normandy_ could make the shot to hit those coolant tanks.

Pressly dropped into the co-pilot chair. "Joker, what are you up to? We already put the _Normandy_ through her paces, you don't have to keep testing her!"

"Strap in, Pressly, we're doing this."

"I can order you to stop this, Joker." Pressly was strapping himself in, bringing CIC data up to the bridge.

"Pressly," Jeff glanced to his copilot chair, "no offense, but this isn't your bag of tea."

"I'm curious to hear what Jeff has planned," Adams said through comms from the engineering deck, "What do you need me to do?"

Jeff flexed his fingers again, the clock kept ticking. Instruments on his dash relayed more information than he could possibly assimilate, the shore party's battle swinging wildly among dozens of other readings he could worry about, but he blocked it all out. There was only the maneuver, the single, inscrutable truth of a pilot's execution.

 _And now, 'tis a man who dares assault the sky._

"Shift to field oscillation," Jeff said, "variable power, directly out of stealth. Can the skin-sinks absorb heat in atmosphere?"

"Absorb heat, out of stealth?" Adams asked, "Why would we do that?"

"I don't have time to explain, can we do it?"

"Of course, that's what they're supposed to do, but too much energy and they'll vent. Lithium and O-two don't like each other. What kind of numbers are we talking?"

"Uh," Jeff really couldn't mentally calculate specific heat equations for a ship-wide burn, and he didn't have a textbook in front of him, so... "lots. That's my answer."

"Yeah, hmm, we've got them pooled up from loitering, but if we have a second to cool them beforehand, we should be okay."

Jeff wasn't sure if they would have a second. Running the heat-sinks in atmosphere was probably suicide, but he wasn't going to let the Commander slip away from them again.

"Alright, I think I can make that work."

Jeff took in a deep breath. Beeping monitors didn't bother him anymore. Messages from robots didn't concern him. The dashboard with its thousands of instruments, and his peripheral focus, faded away. He was the best damn pilot in the Alliance. There weren't any machines that could think like he could. He'd prove those asshole robots who's boss.

He recalled a few of his maneuver packages and stored them in the auto-pilot memory to be executed at a button-press if he needed it.

 _Don't fail me now, girl_. Joker gently patted the dashboard.

"Hold on to your butts, everyone. Here we go, on my mark." The clock ticked while the _Normandy_ dropped toward Bekenstein.

The altimeter read 5200 km, 3000 km, 2300 km...

Three.

Two.

One.

"MARK!"

All the non-emergency lights on the deck dimmed to nothing as the frigate shuddered, mass shifting from their Newtonian baseline to the equivalent of a heavy cruiser in less than a second. Jeff's stomach lurched from the altered G-forces, and every non-secured datapad, stylus, and errant coffee mug jumped away from its resting position.

Jeff executed Sunshine-1 in the autopilot, letting the computer figure out the Delta-V budget for their planned path, while he manually controlled the _Normandy_ 's roll.

1000 km, 500 km, 300 km...

As their altitude dropped, their velocity increased. The Tantalus drive shifted the _Normandy_ 's mass in variable microbursts of compensation. The mass-power reader on the dash looked like a music player's visualization, except instead of hearing heavy synth, every warning klaxon on the ship screamed in ambulatory panic. Even a weapons lock let out an angry chime, likely the _Alabama_ mistaking the _Normandy_ for an incoming torpedo. Air burst in fury around them, turning the ship into a veritable fireball of speed as it slowly pitched nose-down, lateral up from the planet's surface, turning the ship upside down. The hair on the back of Jeff's neck stood at attention better than he ever could.

He ran Ultraviolet-2 and Seagreen-5 and Wheatgrass-11.

They hit mach-6, over _two_ _kilometers per_ _second_ , _in atmosphere_ , while leveling out. The _Normandy_ shook from the strain. Increased G-forces, along with the insane heat—some of the sensors completely failing—rocked the whole ship in a furious concert of vibration. The artificial gravity struggled to keep the crew from turning into paste against a bulkhead, thresholds on every system red lined, most of them were off the damn charts.

Jeff had to rely on the model and his remaining instruments to time everything correctly. The outer hull of the ship was an inferno, impossible to see out of. There was no time to hesitate, no method to visualize the attack, he executed based on the clock, haphazard calculus, and pure instinct.

He punched the cannon and maneuvered the ship simultaneously, fingers dancing like a pianist's, executing Bluestorms and Sunshines in rapid succession.

The _Normandy_ rocked hard from the mass-driver releasing its attack. The slug, a few kilograms of dense metal, instantly turned into a sun-bright flash of fire, crossing the distance between the ships and erupting like a bomb against the hull of the _Alabama_ in less time than it took to blink.

The _Normandy_ completed its arc, rising up, pitching down relative to itself, and raced back toward the stars. The entire maneuver, from the moment they disengaged the stealth systems, took less than seven seconds. Jeff exhaled, adrenaline pumping.

"Status report!" Pressly strained against the chair as the _Normandy_ climbed and gradually stopped threatening to shake itself apart.

All external sensors malfunctioned. Minor hull breaches patched themselves temporarily with omni-gel. Most advanced starships wore a thin skin of the stuff beneath their hulls to prevent depressurization in the event of something like this happening, though Jeff doubted the engineers ever considered supersonic atmospheric entry as part of their safety systems. Still, pressure looked stable. The targeting lock faded away, but several other sirens still blared. Engineering was completely offline. No radio, no camera feed, no HVAC sensors, no motion detection. Nothing, except an overworked Tantalus and its supporting systems.

"Adams, report!"

Silence.

Jeff melted into his seat. Had he gone too far? The _Normandy_ was designed to trap heat inside the ship, not shrug it off like a shuttle, so making an attack run at supersonic speeds probably overloaded the sinks.

Jeff checked the engine room cameras. Static. He flipped to the nearby cargo bay, but the camera was just reporting a black image.

Good work, Jeff. You might be a person, but a rogue AI would at least have an excuse for killing its own crew, turning them into transistors or something. You're not supposed to fry your friends.

"Can someone get down to freaking engineering and check on them?!" Jeff called back to the technicians, but they were still pulling too many Gs to safely unstrap.

He went over the facts again in his head. Was there another way they could have disabled the _Alabama_? Maybe a really lucky orbital strike, but the force was more likely to crash the ship than just disable its FTL. In the end, he would trade the engineering crew for Shepard. They all signed up for this, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice if necessary.

Jeff still felt like shit, though.

 _ **That was impressive. Imagine what you could do with our systems on your ship?**_

What if he accepted the robot overlords? Could he have pulled off that maneuver without cooking the crew? What if, what if, what if.

 _Godamnit_. With nothing to do, his hands were shaking. He had no way to work out the adrenaline. Stupid fight or flight response. He could punch the dash or something, but he'd break every bone in his hand. Vrolik syndrome strikes again. He couldn't even sneeze without risking injury. He couldn't take this crap, this waiting then panicked action then waiting. He was going to lose it.

They escaped atmosphere and drifted to orbital position. Jeff started rebooting systems to get the scanners back online and maybe calm himself down. One by one, systems started reporting in. The artificial gravity kicked back on. Engineering still read dark.

The dash radio clicked. "Adams here, sorry about that, took me a while to find the radio."

 _Holy shit, I didn't murder Adams!_

"Absorbing heat from the hull pushed a lot of energy through us really quick. Fried the intercom and some cameras. We'll need a bunch of new fuses, but, critical systems are green."

"Thank God," Pressly said, then started pulling up radar and LADAR detection data. Most of the important sensors were internal unless in use, as external antennae would degrade quickly in radiation-bombarding space, or make easy eyes to poke out for GARDIAN attacks.

"Let's see if your stunt was worth it, Joker."

Jeff leaned forward to watch Pressly's terminal. An image of the _Alabama_ appeared on screen, flying away from Bekenstein at subluminal speeds.

"Hell yeah! Take that, robots!"

A chorus of relieved laughter came up over the radio and throughout the ship. Jeff deleted the robot message and blocked the sender. Again.

"Congratulations, Joker," Adams said with a laugh, "but please never pull something like that again, at least until we retrofit the girl to be purposed for flying through a sun."

Jeff leaned back in his seat, feeling better than he had in a long time. Hopefully the Commander wasn't being held too close to those damaged systems.

The radio clicked back on, but instead of Adams, Garrus' voice piped through.

"Garrus here, we're on our way back to the Normandy."

"You guys alright?" Pressly asked, "we've had some, uh, technical difficulties up here. Can't seem to get suit data."

"Bruises and burns and some hurt egos. We're coming in Liara's shuttle, looks like I'm not getting the deposit back on mine. Massani can tell you all about that."

"Liara's with you?" Jeff asked.

"Yeah," Garrus sighed, "but Vido and his wife escaped."

"Don't worry," Jeff said, "they're running at sub-light speed, it will take them days to get anywhere."

"You got their ship? Can you send me the info?"

Pressly uploaded the data through the radio connection.

"Got it, thanks, and I think I got a plan. Straight out of Shepard's handbook. Joker, you'll probably like this one."

"Oh, God, not again," Pressly groaned.

Jeff grinned. "What's the plan, Garrus?"

"Depends on if you've kept up on my vehicle maintenance while I've been gone. How's the Mako running these days?"

* * *

Jeff limped his way down to the bottom deck. Twenty-three stairs, two corners, and three button presses later (the elevator's voice recognition was terrible, he should really pull the disability card to get it fixed, but the brass would probably just call it a 'security feature' and stonewall him. Pfft), he emerged to the sound of Garrus working on the Mako in the cargo hold. Ashley stood where she usually did, at the weapons locker, setting up a bunch of rifles Jeff wanted nothing to do with.

There would be plenty of time to formulate a plan and put it in motion. The _Alabama_ wanted to escape and the _Normandy_ was too quick to be attacked, but the _Normandy_ couldn't assault the enemy, either. The fighter bay opened and swarmed the _Alabama_ in an escort pattern as soon as they were able while she fled toward the Relay. With stealth systems offline, the _Normandy_ lost its edge in a space battle.

If they called in the Alliance, the whole system would become a warzone. The Normandy still had its third party IFF installed, looking like a civilian vessel. Blatant military presence would incite a response, the situation would escalate, and the Alliance would be seen as bullies, using the Commander's situation as an excuse to steal territory. The success rates for boarding a ship and recovering a prisoner weren't good; the _Normandy_ was really the only ship capable of pulling it off, but that was with her stealth and her Commander online. Preslly called the whole situation a crapshoot. Jeff agreed.

"Joker." Garrus didn't turn away from his work on the Mako, he must have recognized Jeff's awkward gait.

Garrus stared at his his omni-tool while guiding a welding bot on the vehicle's undercarriage. A series of medi-gel patches stuck to his face where his right mandible connected to burnt scales, the aftermath of the ground battle. Seeing as how the turian wasn't sitting in the med-bay, Garrus probably objected to Chakwas' typical motherly aid and drew the line at patches. It looked painful, and this was from a guy who broke a bone once a month.

"Garrus, how's she look?" Jeff was hoping to make a pun about the welding and whether turian women like guys with scars. The moment evaporated quickly, though.

"Should hold, provided we don't get blasted on the way in. You can get us close enough?"

Jeff sighed, too tired to elaborate much. "Yeah, I think I can pull it off."

"Good," Garrus said. "This is going to work, Joker, it has to."

"I know."

Jeff hobbled into the engine room. The smell of burnt electronics and a haze of ash-colored smoke filled the air. Adams and his team were busy ripping wiring out of walls, panels sat in piles, and Jeff found the chief engineer wearing a breather mask, flashlight activated on his omni-tool, spanner in hand quickly prying bolts off assembly panels.

"Bypass the L-One capacitors completely, Chase, we'll need the extra throughput to the secondary sinks. Watch out for leaks while you're down there, the omni-gel is only a temporary solution."

"Aye, Chief."

"Adams," Jeff said, his own reflection appearing in the mask's visor. Adams nodded toward a spare breather mask hanging on the wall that read SAFETY in big red letters, a few fire extinguishers notably missing. Jeff put the mask on.

"Adams, I'm sorry for—" Jeff trailed off, the mask respiring in tune with his inhalation. What was he supposed to say? Sorry, I almost murdered you and nearly blew up the ship you love? I'll buy you a drink next time we're in port, that should square us away, right?

"Joker," Adams said, his voice a characteristic calm. Jeff's faceless visage centered in Adams' visor. "Don't worry about it, we're all still alive down here." He turned away and yanked off another panel, tossing it into pile of scrap.

"I am worried, man. I should be court marshaled for doing something like that. I should lose my wings. I almost _killed_ you." Jeff started pacing with his hands, the kind of anxious movement he couldn't really pull off with his stunted legs.

"In AFT," Jeff continued, "when professor Schwartz was going over the static assembly protocols for drive core classes, I dickishly pointed out that static electricity doesn't _build up_ and that either their physics, or their terminology was wrong. She proceeded to bust out every damn proof, from basic trig up to advanced electrical current physics, in order to explain why starships have to shrug off static after FTL travel. She devoted the entire lesson to shutting me up, and finished by saying, 'Zat is why we say discharge static to ze pilots, instead of positron differential transportation and diffusion, _Joker_ , lest you go kill your crew wiz my blessing _'._ "

Adams stood up from his mess of wires and instruments on the deck, jumpsuit pocked with stains and scorch marks. The sound of each mask pumping clean air in turn was oddly soothing.

"Joker—Jeff. Look, they give you a hard time in flight school about the lives of us greasemonkeys and knuckledraggers down here, and for good reason. If every pilot tried to fly the way you do, no one would would ever want to touch the deck of a starship ever again." Adams took a step toward Jeff and put his free hand on his shoulder. "You, on the other hand, actually pull off the crazy shit, and no one got hurt."

Jeff shook his head. " _Someone_ should yell at me. Why is everyone okay with what just happened? How can you be so damned calm? _"_

Adams cocked his head, warping Jeff's reflection in the visor, and took a step back. "Joker, you know what the fill rate is for Alliance engineers getting jobs in the private sector?"

Jeff didn't know.

"Somewhere around eighty-seven percent. Some guys just retire, but it's easy to find a cushy job after working on starship engines for about a decade. You know what pilots do after their typically much shorter active duty?" Adams pointed an accusatory spanner in Jeff's direction.

Jeff shook his head.

"They wind up teaching at AFT, retiring as heroes, drunks, or dead. Just look at what happened to Atkov, or Ryder, or Grissom. You guys are the ones who burn out, so keep your head on straight before I shut down the drive core to straighten it back on for you, got it?"

"The drive core is in a self-actualizing fusion reaction, it doesn't shut down."

"Whatever," Adams waved his spanner about in the air, "I'll disable a coupling and _effectively_ shut it down. Point is, I'm calm down here because I can't afford the stimulation, but you rely on it, it actually makes you better at your job. Killer instinct and all that. I don't want to have to worry about you _and_ the electronics."

Jeff nodded. So many things could have gone differently above Bekenstein, and he just went for the throat, the most appetizing option, without really considering every outcome. Without being _able_ to consider every outcome.

"L-One's bypassed, Chief," Chase called as she crawled out of a duct. Adams nodded in her direction.

"Joker, look. Let's just focus on getting the Commander back, okay? We have no way of getting the primary heat sinks to hold a charge now that their capacitors are blown. Auxiliary sinks are green. She'll make FTL but no stealth systems. Got it?"

"Yeah."

"Don't beat yourself up over what could have been. Keep looking forward. You did good, kid."

"Thanks."

Jeff turned to leave, pealing off the mask and hanging it back on the wall.

"Joker," Adams said. Jeff turned around. Adams still stood in his pile of cabling, spanner in hand. "If I had the choice. Between me and the Commander. You know what I'd do?"

Jeff nodded. Adams pointed the spanner in Jeff's direction, and mimicked the nod. "Good, now get off my deck, jerkface."

"What?"

"You wanted someone to yell at you, so there. Go. Scram. You're sucking up dangerous chems, freak."

Jeff wanted to laugh. "Aye, Chief."

Jeff left the engine room, took the corner, carefully pressed the button to call the elevator, patiently waited for the doors to open, stepped inside, pressed the door-close button, then pressed the button for the crew deck, waited the five seconds of gravity-shifting transit that put pressure on his ankles and knees and thighs and back, waited for the doors to open, exited the elevator, took the corner up the twenty-three stairs up into the CIC, crossed the CIC, avoided bumping into any transitory crew members, stepped up the ramp, limped down the bridge corridor, and crawled into the helmsman's station.

Jeff realized he had to pee.

He produced his medically prescribed catheter—because they didn't make starships with latrines near the cockpit—starting the familiar song and dance of checking the deck for wandering eyes, unzipping his pants, fitting the catheter on, trying not to draw attention, and directing his own eyes at his personal terminal.

 _ **Tick Tock, Jeff. You haven't given an answer, which means you're still considering. One test is all I need to prove this system capable.**_

Jeff zipped his pants up, sanitized his hands, and starting bringing up telemetry data again. Same as before he left the bridge: the _Alabama_ was heading straight for Relay 61, and had stopped their initial burn. They were just coasting, now, falling through space at an almost constant velocity.

"They've stopped their burn?" Pressly's voice appeared somewhere behind Jeff.

Jeff almost jumped out of his seat.

"Holy crap, Pressly, don't sneak up on me like that." Pressly cocked an eyebrow.

"We seem to be ready, Garrus, meet you in the CIC?" Pressly walked back down the bridge tunnel, talking to the radio on his wrist.

It was time. Jeff felt nervous, again. Like he'd cheated death a few too many times and karma was going to catch up to him. He followed vids of guys obsessed with extreme sports and their addiction to the adrenaline and their inevitable career-ending injuries. Jeff understood the draw to action, but failure in this case wasn't just going to result in a few broken bones. Broken bones were old hat to him. Failure meant the death of one of the most important people in the galaxy, a huge stellar incident, and probably the only person with the capacity to understand and stop the Reapers. Everything relied on Jeff to pull this off.

If the _Alabama_ got to the Relay, they lose. If they called in the Alliance, they lose. Desperation is a bitch, and both sides were damn close to it.

A crowd gathered in the CIC to hear Garrus' plan. Jeff turned on a monitor to watch it and split his attention between the briefing and figuring out how _he_ was going to execute the plan. The galaxy map turned into a virtual rendition of the _Alabama_ , ten fighters protecting her in an escort pattern. Velocity static, bearing on the Relay.

Ten fighters wouldn't be much of a problem in a straight up fight. Ten fighters assisted by GARDIAN and mass-driver turrets and whatever else this cruiser had, was a losing proposition any way to look at it. The fighters couldn't be drawn away, either: they were protecting the ship from being boarded, not destroyed. Jeff's face fell into his hands as he listened to Garrus give his rundown.

"We get in under the fighters, like this," the image conjured up a virtual _Normandy_ , going backwards, and opening its cargo bay door, "and we release the catch. The Mako drops in, the Normandy covers our entrance, and we find an airlock on the hull."

Even if they could get under the fighters, it was still a bold plan. The cannons would rip them apart, and could even target the Mako in transit, if the fighters didn't. The _Normandy_ couldn't maneuver while setting up a zero-G drop for the Mako, either, so the fighters became even more dangerous. It was ludicrous. Nuts. It also looked like the only feasible way to board the ship.

"Suicide," Pressly stated.

"Joker got the Mako in under the geth on Ilos. This will be an easier maneuver, just more guns pointed at us."

"It's ten times the maneuver!" Pressly countered, but Jeff stopped listening. He was staring at his terminal, hands on the haptic keyboard.

 _ **Okay, a test: What am I looking at?**_

Jeff sent the message, heart racing, finger hovering above the ENTER key after pressing it.

He tried to figure out what might happen based on a spectrum of possibilities: the Best Possible Situation would be _It_ doing all the things _It_ promised without any weird or dire consequences. Worst Possible Situation was _It_ vented all the air and overloaded the eezo core two milliseconds after it had access. Jeff figured the true ramifications were somewhere in the middle.

How did he figure _It_ was a machine? A century ago, people had programs on their smart phones capable of passing a Turing Test, so text-based interaction wasn't a clear indicator. _It_ triggered something like the uncanny valley, though; the speed at which the system broke the _Normandy_ 's firewalls while loitering and stealthed on all bands of the spectrum, convinced Jeff this program was more than just software upgrades. _It_ didn't just carefully skirt around the VI, probing for weakness and exploiting bad port-protocol or something like that, _It_ outright bypassed everything, like network security wasn't even there. _It_ s intentions should spell out whether _It_ was going to go all murder-bot on them.

The machine needed the ship, that much was apparent. _It_ wouldn't blow it up, but would _It_ vent all the O-two and get rid of the annoying meat-bags? Jeff didn't think so, or at least, not at first. The robot was interested in the ship, that much was clear, and _It_ needed Jeff to invite _It_ on board. _It_ was probably capable of forcing its way through the firewalls without his permission, given that _It_ bypassed his VI so easily, so that led him to believe the machine's true goal was to earn the trust of the personnel.

But to what gain?

"We have to _account_ for these fighters in our approach," Pressly continued to argue, "if we can't out-maneuver them, we get torn apart. Towing the Mako in means we have ONE approach vector available. Any pilot or targeting system is going to blast us apart!"

"Not necessarily," Garrus countered. "We FTL in, which masks our approach, we reduce velocity while still under mass, make the drop, then scramble the defenses while the Mako's in transit. It's a classic Cabal Run."

"Cabals are groups of biotics, capable of working together to pull something like this off, we just have one biotic available. Plus, Cabal groups have incredibly high casualty rates, if I have my intelligence correct."

 _ **You're looking at the MSV Alabama. You need to board it to retrieve Shepard.**_

The machine was quick, but speed wasn't surprising. How _It_ knew their intention was far more disconcerting, especially when Jeff hadn't figured out _It_ s intentions yet.

 _ **Wrong. We want to destroy it, but our weapons aren't functional to the task.**_

Jeff tried misdirection this time.

Garrus' idea was sound, but they couldn't exit FTL accurately enough to make a precision drop like he wanted. The Cabal Runs he referenced were incredibly prone to disaster. Maybe the turian had more faith in Jeff than he had in himself, or his own people. More pressure Jeff's shoulders.

"Liara can make small adjustments, and Joker can make the drop accurate enough. This is the only way."

 _ **You're misdirecting. My data suggests the Normandy is more than capable of engaging the target. You believe my system to be aligned counter to your goals. I assure you, the system is safe. Lab tested for tens of thousands of hours with every flight scenario in the books. We need a field test. This situation would be perfect.**_

Jeff thumbed a beat on the dashboard, trying to think. No one pulled off an FTL to subluminal transition in under five hundred kilometers. Space might be big, but FTL made it really, really, small. Margin for error shrunk to nothing when pulling light-speed-scale tactics, and humans just aren't capable of zero-margin execution.

Meat wasn't perfect.

"Joker," Pressly said, voice piping out of the speaker and down the tube at a slight echo, "Can you do it?"

Sheesh, even Pressly was starting to believe in him.

"Yeah," Jeff said, contrite, "I can do it."

 _ **OK. I accept. Here's the situation, and if you screw us over, there will be hell.**_

If he was making some sort of Faustian deal, he'd like the record to show that he was at least hesitant about it.

 _ **Confirmed. Simply install the attached data packets, and your system will be optimized with the Enhanced Defense Initiative.**_

* * *

 **A/N** :

Okay, we're rolling now. Took a while to find the right "voice" for this series, and I think Joker is the perfect POV for that. Equal parts philosophical, crazy intuitive, and smarmy. Exactly what I expect from a guy that sits at the helm all day responsible for everyone else's lives.

I like the idea of Jeff having to struggle with the fact that he's reliant on machines to do his job, and EDI is kind of a perfect foil for him, another place I felt the games missed an opportunity.

Side note: I wish FFNet was a little more friendly to different fonts and formats. I hate resulting to bold/italics to signify text-speech.

More updates quicker, and it's getting easier to fit chapters into my outline. Hopefully this trend continues.

Thanks for reading. Next chapter is partially from the perspective of one of the more controversial characters. Should be fun.


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